Well-known local business figure Steve Tarr has announced his semi-retirement, which will see him step down as Chairman of Hili Ventures after five years.

The decision marked the scaling back of Mr Tarr’s professional activities after an illustrious 45-year career spanning multiple countries and sectors.

He will, however, be retaining a number of board appointments at smaller companies, while considering a few others.

One of these smaller companies is Mdina Partners, where he is Founder and Chairman. In a social media post discussing his semi-retirement, the company commented:

“We see this as an opportunity to keep growing under Steve’s mentorship as we continue to push the envelope and challenge on!”

In an interview carried by Times of Malta, Mr Tarr explained that as a father of four and grandfather to two, he decided to make Malta his home 15 years ago, knowing this would see him retire in the country.

The pandemic and the lifestyle change it brought about put things into perspective for him, and he found himself enjoying a taste of semi-retirement, which involved minimal business travel and commuting.

He plans to dedicate his newly found free time to his family, friends, his love of watching sports and documentaries, and hopes to find a charity to be involved in.

In his time at Hili Ventures, Mr Tarr saw remarkable growth, with the company now present in 10 countries, operating 166 McDonald’s restaurants in six European markets, 30 Apple Premium Resellers in Poland and Hungary.

It has also ventured into oil and gas, hospitality, leasing, technology and real estate over the years, and grown to 10,000 people.