Australia

"Steve Harrison and Drayton Bird * being two of them, Randy Handfelder being another very, very good teacher of copywriting, David Nobay as well, who is now the Creative Director of Droga5 in Australia."

"One of the things Adnan Khashoggi was famous for in those days was his fabulous parties. Peter Munk suggested to his new partner that, in the interests of SPP, Khashoggi might consider holding parties in Australia and New Zealand. Agreement was enthusiastic and immediate. The first party was in Auckland, New Zealand, on the evening of Thursday, November 18, 1976. Adnan arrived in Auckland in his Boeing 727 with his companion, Laura Biancalini, while Essam Khashoggi flew in in his smaller DC9. Travelling with Adnan were Peter and Melanie Munk as well as David Gilmour and his London model friend, Jill Sweeny, all of whom were central to the Khashoggi bash at the Shoreline Cabaret, ‘Takapuna. Two hundred guests drank Australian bubbly, ate splendidly, were entertained by a Maori concert party and danced to one of the best bands on the island."

"‘So now it gets heated. They send us a note back saying, “The deal’s done and you’re too late and we’re not interested.” Now I ⁠*know* there is something strange going on because if you were going to sell your house for $300,000 and I come along and offer you $350,000, you would take the $350,000 but they just said no. They didn’t even say, “Let’s have a meeting, let’s discuss it.” If they’d been smart they would have engaged with us but it felt to me that Bob Matthew had just taken this adversarial attitude, which seemed personal about me though I don’t know why.’ Again Heatley picked up the phone to Rainbow’s lawyers, who agreed to seek an injunction in the High Court against Rothmans’ sale of its New Zealand business to its Australian counterpart.⁠"

"The 1960s were a period of consolidation as well as expansion of Rupert’s tobacco and cigarette interests. The takeover of Carreras and Rothmans led to expansion in other parts of the world. Using Rothmans as his flagship, he created a stir with his philosophy of industrial partnership in various countries where he embarked on new initiatives. Partnership companies were established on a bilateral basis in Australia and New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Canada, Jamaica, Northern and Southern Rhodesia (now Zambia and Zimbabwe) and Nyassaland (now Malawi) − eventually even beyond the Iron Curtain in Russia and China."

"The law of unintended consequences helped balance the ledger for the boys, she thinks. Faced with being a single father, Stokes cut down his work and travel commitments to concentrate on being a better parent. One night he had dinner at friend Santina Stransky’s house and bagged the leftover schnitzel to take home to make the boys’ school lunches. Stransky (a European countess, Perth socialite and one of Australia’s pioneer television cooking show hosts) still laughs about that. No matter how much money he spent, he didn’t waste much."

"Stokes had read the future acutely from the podium when he warned that the Australia he knew was morphing into a version of Los Angeles. ‘This is no particular slight on Los Angeles — it’s just that Los Angeles is not Australia. And there is no need for us to surrender our cultural identity, certainly not without a fight.’"

"The nuts and bolts of broadcasting fascinated Stokes. He had trouble remembering dates and people’s names, even figures once he’d finished with them. Money bored him once it was made and reinvested. But technology had always intrigued him. Inside Australia’s new media mogul was the little boy squatting in the squalor with his Meccano set at Watsonia barracks, the bigger boy who built a crystal set, the teenager who grafted an electric fuel pump onto his first jalopy and the offbeat property developer who was among the first in Perth to have a home computer. Now he was gripped by the idea of creating the first digital broadcast centre in Australia. His eyes gleam and his voice is animated when he talks about how they did it."

"Caterpillar imposed ‘five-star’ standards on its dealer workshops — a difficult level to meet in many parts of China. One problem was that Chinese machinery operators tried to save on labour costs by attempting their own repairs and maintenance rather than taking machines back to the dealerships. Even if used machines came back for repair, it was hard to find or train locals with the skill to do the job to the makers’ standards. The system that worked so well in Australia was floundering."

"*Carters was run by a tough old sawmiller, Alwyn Carter, and his two sons. I remember going to their offices and persuading the old man to convert to the Chase Prime Rate, but the boys stepped in. They’d had a long-running fight with my brother Ian over pulp and paper equipment and were keen to take out their frustrations on me. I remember them laughing at me: ‘You’ve got your balls in a knot, Gibbsie, you’ll lose some money; what a joke, ha ha ha.’ ‘All right, you bastards,’ I thought. I went back and told my staff to look at the loan contract and if there is any infraction, the slightest irregularity, we’ll call in the loan. And sure enough, not long after they were one day late with an interest payment. I called in the loan. They went berserk. No one else would lend them money, since no one could make any profit lending money under the conditions Muldoon had created. The Carters got on to Chase Manhattan in the US: here they were with the top credit rating in New Zealand, and this little bugger in Auckland* *was calling in their loan! I got reverberations from Australia but nobody stopped me. It was one of those satisfying victories, going back to the Carter brothers and saying, ‘Tough titties, boys: pay up.’ And they did.*"

"*I’d rate Freightways as the central and major business experience of my life. It lasted for 20 years and was based on a great partnership with Trevor. We never had an argument and we’re still great mates, which is hugely satisfying. It was a hell of a lot of fun; we made heaps of dough and learnt a lot about life. We both gained great value out of each other. I wouldn’t have changed a thing. My only mild regret is selling. The courier companies were brilliant businesses and still are. We both underestimated how well Trevor had trained the guys who stayed in charge. Dean Bracewell, who was a relatively young chief executive, has done an excellent job continuing Trevor’s very disciplined approach. It’s hard to have the discipline not to charge around buying into Australia and doing stupid things; Bracewell has that discipline.* *So we sold the courier businesses privately to some guys in Australia, who leveraged the hell out of it (we had no debt on it) and refloated it at a huge profit, like we should have done. They did a Gibbs on Gibbs. We sold them for much less than they were really worth. It was an end of an era and I didn’t give it the attention it deserved, although the truth is that Freightways has probably performed better since 1997 as a public company than it might have if we’d kept it private. A public company has the advantage of keeping people on their toes, since one’s pride is involved. If we’d kept it private and not given it sufficient attention — Trevor being retired and me being overseas — it may have run down and Bracewell might have wandered off. That’s the thing about capitalism; nothing keeps working forever. To stay on top a company needs constant reinvigoration and attention to detail.*"