Dallas

"Richard said, “We can go through this whole study if you want.” I was petrified but ready to spring into action. Unbeknownst to me, however, Equitable had sent down the senior-most guys from New York, not the grunts, to go through the plan. They were not about to wade through three-inch binders full of analysis. My books could have been the Dallas phone book. Nobody opened them or looked at them. I don’t remember if they even took them! Everyone just talked, and then it was over."

"In late October 1987, as fortunes were crashing all around him, Stokes was reported to be one of the few millionaires buying art at Christie’s first post–financial crash art sale. He paid $8000 for a rare letter relating to Australia’s discovery and $6000 for an early map of the country, as well as record prices at auction for works by William Dargie, Leonard French and Albert Namatjira. A week later at Sotheby’s he bought another Leonard French work, and one by Arthur Boyd. Stokes had arrived on the other side of the crash with his fortune, and his reputation, intact, cashed up and ready to benefit by picking over the wreckage of others’ empires. In January 1988, he bought a St Georges Terrace building from the West Australian State Superannuation Fund for $20 million. On 20 October he moved offshore, buying a $212 million office block in Dallas, Texas, and announcing plans to build another, each the size of the premium properties in Sydney. The next year he bought the Perth Entertainment Centre and 40 per cent of the Perth Wildcats basketball team."