Campbell

"Ken Auletta wrote in The New Yorker, “In the world capital of engineering, where per-capita income can seem inversely related to social skills, Campbell was the man who taught founders to look up from their computer screens. . . . His obituary was not featured on the front of most newspapers, or at the top of most technology news sites, but it should have been.”"

"Renabie required about $15 million for the rehabilitation of its mine and ore-processing equipment. How did Barrick and Campbell raise that kind of money? It was Ned Goodman, one of Canada’s leading financiers, who had the answer. “Ned Goodman is as bright as anybody at devising things,” says Birchall. “He invented a gold royalty interest scheme which we then publicly offered. By a miracle we sold it, and raised the $15 million. It was the Barrick—Cullaton Gold ‘Trust. When that was done we had $15 million and a half-interest in a gold mine that was going to be rehabilitated.”"

"Deveson was to chair a board meeting on 30 March in Perth. He decided not to call a crisis meeting before then and did not brief other directors in detail, which made some unhappy when the story broke. They started blaming Deveson as well as Campbell. Stokes can recall being in his office with Peter Gammell when the rate-card story broke in March 1995. He and Gammell looked at each other and Stokes said something like: ‘I think we just got the chance to take over Seven.’ Stokes tends to sum up complex matters with a pithy line. ‘When a company is at war with its two major shareholders there’s always an opportunity for a man of peace,’ he deadpans, then chuckles."

"COWLEY STRUCK THREE hours before the deadline for tenders from Optus and Foxtel. Instead of submitting a Foxtel bid, he sent a hostile note some Seven directors saw as threatening. The directors called in a Queen’s Counsel to advise them on whether it was legally prudent to defy it. Meanwhile, the Optus offer arrived — and greatly impressed the Seven directors. But their silk warned that if they rebuffed the offer, Optus might sue. However, if they took the offer, News might sue. Campbell urged the board to go with Optus and the board voted to take his advice. Two people were deeply unhappy. One was Dulcie Boling, prevented from voting because she represented News; the other was Stokes. Boling got mad and Stokes got even. He calmly threatened to sue the directors individually over the Optus decision — which, he argued, should have gone to shareholders. Not all company directors are automatically indemnified against actions by major shareholders and so the threat worried the board. Threatening directors and running press campaigns had been standard procedure in the 1980s, especially in Perth, but most of the Seven directors had not encountered these tactics before."