Lend Lease

"Ron Scott had been one of Gibbs’ mates at Canterbury University. The son of a Scottish tea planter in India, Scott had inherited some money and was working for a leading real estate firm in Sydney. The pair ran into each other and soon devised a scheme to make money in their spare time. Supermarkets were a relatively new idea in Australia and there was money to be made by consolidating a two-and-a-half-acre site suitable for a new supermarket. City councils around Sydney were keen to facilitate these developments and had rezoned a number of potential sites. The typical site had 12 private houses on it, the value of which might double overnight. The task was to buy the 12 properties, then flick the combination on to a corporate developer, such as Lend Lease. Naturally, plenty of other speculators were trying to do the same thing and it was a race to line up all the property owners at one site. The exercise was akin to herding cats."

"Being a simple Kiwi guy, I was enraged. I didn’t give a damn if we lost the deal. I stood up and said, ‘You bloody bastards are trying to renegotiate; you gave us your word two days ago and now you’re chiselling.’ I swore and walked out. It wasn’t intended, but it was the perfect thing to do. My partner, who was more used to the Aussie rules, had the nous to hang around. He said to Lend Lease, ‘You’re stuffed; my partner won’t have anything to do with you.’ Then they started to beg; they wanted the site and wanted it badly. So I came back into the room and laid down all these things they had to do by four o’clock. The greatest satisfaction of the deal was to see this director grunting up the stairs after half an hour running around getting signatures, with great sweat rings under his arms, gasping, ‘Am I on time?’"

"*When they made the offer, we said, ‘How do we know that you’ll document this deal and sign it off by Friday?’ The Lend Lease guy said, ‘You have the word of a director of Lend Lease that we’ll complete this transaction. The word of a Lend Lease director is not given lightly.’ ‘OK,’ I said. Well, we got the documents in on Thursday and they started to have all sorts of little problems with the details, then trouble getting the directors available for signing. Eventually they agreed to meet at 3pm on Friday to square it away. We met and they were still fluffing around. Finally, the penny dropped. They were stalling us, calling our bluff that we had another offer and trying to lower the price at the last moment.* *Being a simple Kiwi guy, I was enraged. I didn’t give a damn if we lost the deal. I stood up and said, ‘You bloody bastards are trying to renegotiate; you gave us*"