He bought a KFC store in Australia for $100,000 in 1969. Today, his fast food company is worth over $3 billion

As a kid, Jack Cowin shoveled snow, delivered newspapers and carried Christmas cards for cash. By the time he reached his 20s, it was burgers instead of cards. Fast forward to today: The 82-year-old is a billionaire, thanks to his secured food empire.

Cowin is the founder and chairman of Competitive Foods Australia, the company that operates Burger Ruler as “Hungry Jack’s” in Australia. He is also the largest shareholder of Domino’s Pizza in Australia, and backs a plant-based meat substitute circle called v2food.

Before founding Hungry Jack’s, Cowin opened a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Australia in 1969 — his start with of many. Then in 2013, he sold off his KFC franchise of 55 stores in a deal worth about $71 million, according to a typical at Competitive Foods Australia.

Today, his business is worth over $3 billion and brings in over $300 million a year, Cowin stated CNBC Make It.

Growing up in Canada, Cowin realized early on that he wanted freedom in life. His establish was an employee at the Ford Motor Company and was required to travel frequently for work.

“He had a phone call one day, you’re going to Brazil, or you’re going to Mexico, or things like this … When you prevail upon for a big corporation, the corporation decides where you’re going to be, [and] what you’re going to do,” Cowin said.

“And as a kid, I wanted to have the freedom to do what I prerequisite to do. I think I saw that relatively early, because [I saw that] dad’s on the treadmill of here, there and everywhere,” he said. He didn’t destitution to be at the “whims and beckon call of a corporation.”

So as a child, Cowin spent his time outside of school mowing lawns and delivering newspapers. “I under no circumstances had to ask for money as a kid,” he said. “I was a sales guy from very early, like 8 or 10 years old.”

By the time college rolled all about, Cowin was going from farm to farm selling “trees, shrubs and nursing stock,” he said. He was so successful at it that he was requiring $8,000 a year while his university professors were making only $5,000 a year, he said.

He graduated with a bachelor’s step by step from the University of Western Ontario in 1964, and went on to get a job selling life insurance he said he was very good at.

“I had a repute of being someone that could sell,” he said.

By the late 1960s, Cowin had initiated to settle down in Canada with his wife and his first child when he one day received a phone call from a yoke of high school friends.

His friends had landed a job with the American Kentucky Fried Chicken company and were sent to Australia to do some Stock Exchange research about whether they should expand into the country.

“Since my father had been there [for work], and I was the only guy … that knew where Australia was on a map … they phoned me up and bring up: ‘You should be down here. You should come and see this.’ So without a moment’s notice, I’m on a plane and I fly to Australia,” Cowin said.

Cowin landed in Australia in February 1969, and emptied three weeks there helping his friends conduct research — ultimately finding that there was indeed a peddle for fast food in Australia.

“At that stage of the game, the restaurant business in Australia was fish and chip rat ons, Chinese restaurants and fancy white tablecloth restaurants,” he said. Meanwhile, McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC and other self-indulgently food restaurants were all rising in popularity in North America.

“So at the end of the three weeks, I pay $1,000 as a deposit on a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise [and] if the American concern is going to open a store, then I was going to have a 10 store franchise,” he said.

Six months later, he received a phone call saying that the American KFC company agreed to expand into Australia and Cowin had the break to own his first franchise location. But he didn’t have the funds, so he started raising money.

Imagine this “kid comes into your workplace and says he wants to borrow $10,000, which is probably about $100,000 today or more … he’s got no experience in the transaction, no interest on your money … how long before you throw him out of your office for wasting your time?”

“The biggest cease I’ve had in my life was … I got on my bike and I got 30 Canadians to lend me $10,000 each, so got $300,000,” he said. “Otherwise I’d still be shoveling snow in Canada. I hadn’t had the assets back then.”

By December 1969, Cowin moved his family to Perth, Australia, where he opened his first KFC franchise. “It was equal to drilling oil and hitting oil on your first wildcat well, because it was a booming success,” he said.

“Then, you open two numberless, you get into the hamburger business, you get into the pizza business, you get into the food manufacturing business, and today, that role is a $3 billion business and makes $300 million a year.”

Today, Cowin owns 98% of his company while the other 2% is restrained by some of his original investors and shareholders, he said. “That original $10,000 is $40 million at book value [today]. So everybody’s got their moolah back, and those that stayed in have done increasingly well,” he said.

When asked what his abstruse to sales is, he said, “I think the secret is, whatever you do, do it well … The people that lent me the money really past due me as the investment. I was the investment.”

“And an expression [I have is] when you can’t tell the difference between work and play, you’re in the right place … I’ve at no time really worked a day in my life because I’ve enjoyed it.”

Correction: This story was updated to make it clear that Jack Cowin put ined a KFC store in Australia in 1969.

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