Hugh Fletcher

"With a likely price tag of at least $2.5 billion, Telecom itself was beyond the capacity of any New Zealand company to buy on its own. Gibbs thought Fletcher Challenge, the biggest local conglomerate, might be interested — ‘Hugh Fletcher,’ he says, ‘wanted to buy everything, at a bargain price’ — but even they would need to partner with someone. The task therefore was to find a suitable international partner. So while Farmer was concentrating on negotiations with Telecom over Netways, Gibbs began to search on his own in the early months of 1989. He soon got wind that merchant bankers Fay, Richwhite were also tapping the walls."

"*Alan didn’t have a high opinion of professional directors, but my sense is that he would have tackled Fletchers because he believed it was on the wrong track and it was his duty as a New Zealander to respond if asked. At the same time he was getting stuck into producer boards, calling for deregulation and reforms, so he never shied away from the big issues. It would have been a fascinating moment in New Zealand corporate history if he’d joined Fletchers, explosive even. He would have bitten hard and sought to re-orientate the company towards the interests of its shareholders. He’d thought very deeply about the nature of capitalism, about the rights of shareholders, the purpose of a company, in an intellectual way that was so unusual in New Zealand, and diametrically opposed to Hugh Fletcher’s view of the world and the pervading culture at Fletchers. Gibbs’ arrival would have been a takeover, in effect. The divisional heads would have had an entirely new experience, and it certainly would have been the end of Hugh.*[31](private://read/01jrsfvkjy84rkprtbz9amfvj8/#rw-num-note-477309-807254973-31)"