Equiticorp

"Nothing captured the headlines like the big companies. Brierley’s, Omnicorp, Judge Corp, Equiticorp and Chase were familiar corporate names."

"Tapper recalls that it was Coote who suggested that if they brought Allan Hawkins in, his name alone would add two cents to the share price at listing. Hawkins had just launched Equiticorp and was, in Heatley’s words, ‘the golden boy of the finance scene’. Equiticorp itself was booming. Hawkins later plummeted from grace to end up in jail after Equiticorp failed, but that was in a future no one at Rainbow could then imagine. ‘We went to see him and asked if he’d be chairman if we floated,’ Heatley remembers. ‘He sort of yawned, but he must have taken a bit of shine to us because he said yes.’"

"Sometimes, the corporations created their own opportunities. Omnicorp was symbolic of the time. It was New Zealand’s largest public float when it listed in 1985, with its three major shareholders being Equiticorp and Chase Corporation, each with a 20 per cent stake, and Rainbow Corporation with 15 per cent. The remaining 45 per cent sold to the public. Its directors were Heatley, Allan Hawkins, Peter Francis and Colin Reynolds. The names of the directors and the shareholding by their respective companies were all that Omnicorp had to its name besides its issued capital of $50 million. It had no other assets and no stated raison d’être except to allow its three major shareholders to make investments they could not make individually. Although it was not said publicly at the time, the main shareholders were interested in acquiring Fletcher Challenge if they could. It never happened. But whatever its intentions, or lack of them, investors flocked and its 50c shares went straight to $1.50 on listing."

"*Alan Gibbs first really entered my consciousness one day during the Muldoon era, probably early 1984, when Michael Fay returned to the office after a lunch with the deputy prime minister, Jim McLay, and a few businessmen. He was fizzing. Apparently Gibbs had let rip at McLay* *about Muldoon, it was an amazing situation; he just went for it. Michael was impressed, shocked, and in awe of his courage. Then a few years later I saw it myself at an informal meeting of business heavy-hitters a couple of days after the 1987 share market crash. Chase, Equiticorp and those sorts of businesses were all going downstairs and someone, maybe Alan Hawkins, called a meeting. They wanted us to stump up $20 million each to support the market, like JP Morgan had once done in the US. I sat there listening. Then suddenly Gibbs just launched into it. ‘The notion that you can throw a few million together to support a market is just nonsense; you guys have been cowboys for your investors and you’re getting what you deserve.’ When he goes for it, he combines the precision of a scalpel with the power of a chainsaw. The delivery is brutal, but what he said was right on point. So I knew Alan Gibbs was razor sharp and terribly impressive.*[10](private://read/01jrsfvkjy84rkprtbz9amfvj8/#rw-num-note-477273-050103421-10)"