Jarden and Co.

"Gibbs’ scheme was good enough for the Hong Kong Bank (now HSBC), but since it didn’t operate in New Zealand special arrangements were required. In the end, Gibbs arranged that the Hong Kong Bank send a letter of credit to BNZ for $115 million which then endorsed Gibbs Securities’ bills of exchange. The BNZ endorsement turned the bills into first-rate paper. Gibbs then used Jarden and Co. (New Zealand’s largest broking firm) to sell the paper in the money markets. In a roundabout way, then, Gibbs and Farmer were effectively funding it themselves, putting no money in, but having gained the confidence of Wardley, the Hong Kong Bank and BNZ. The whole process had been made much easier by the financial deregulation that the government had passed over the previous months; Gibbs had been amongst the first to take advantage of the new freedoms."

"The post-crash falls, however, reminded Gibbs that businessmen and bankers were perfectly capable of ‘going nuts’ during a boom and that the inevitable crash could bring down the strong as well as the weak. Already a conservative investor before the October 1987 crash, Gibbs became even more cautious. In mid-1987, when he was throwing himself into the health report, Gibbs decided to hire someone to look after his personal investments. He took on Brian Gaynor, who had recently left Jarden and Co. Gaynor lasted about a year and now describes his time with Gibbs as the most boring of his career, in terms of investment activity, because of Gibbs’ extreme conservatism."