Gammell

"Valuations rocketed when Stokes and Bendat rolled all the holdings into a company called BDC Investments that year (1987) and floated it on the stock exchange. But a bigger reason was that the bull market had turned into a mindless stampede. Gammell marvelled at the hand Stokes held in the game but was taken aback by the high stakes: ‘I said I couldn’t believe the value of the businesses and asked what happens when the music stops.’ Stokes said he had little debt and was confident of riding out whatever trouble was ahead. In truth, he was a little uneasy. He wasn’t a herd animal and stampedes…"

"He and Gammell and their advisors started planning a series of interlocking moves. The first was to form a joint venture with another private equity outfit, the Carlyle Group, then use their company National Hire to swallow the market leader, Coates Hire, in a $2.2 billion takeover that would put all the machinery businesses under the WesTrac banner."