Roger France

"Once Gibbs and Farmer gained control of Freightways they had no time to lose; Gibbs remembers telling someone at a cocktail party he was paying $500,000 a week in interest, and he wasn’t exaggerating. But neither man saw the exercise as a big gamble. Farmer says: ‘We knew we could sell two businesses pretty easily; meanwhile the cash flow was good and wasn’t going to stop overnight.’ Gibbs carried out the pre-arranged deal with Mayne Nickless and then sold surplus assets, such as Grower Holdings, the canning business in Hawke’s Bay, Bandag, and some pieces of real estate, for good prices.After an intensive six-month effort they’d paid off the loan and everything left — including half of the best trading businesses, couriers, Armourguard, freight forwarding — was pure profit.[22](private://read/01jrsfvkjy84rkprtbz9amfvj8/#rw-num-note-477308-556173400-22) Roger France worked closely with Gibbs those six months. He was hugely impressed that ‘at no point did this huge deal they’d taken on feel out of control; everything landed pretty much where Alan had conceived it would land’.[23](private://read/01jrsfvkjy84rkprtbz9amfvj8/#rw-num-note-477308-556173400-23) Meantime, France observed, Farmer kept the businesses running like clockwork through an incredibly unsettling time with no damage to the cash flow or the management team."

"Freightways also continued to prosper. The character of Gibbs’ involvement in Freightways remained his ideal for any business enterprise. He’d sit down with Farmer regularly and together they’d work through a list of issues: ‘We’d agree on everything and Trevor would go away and do it,’ Gibbs remembers. He never spent hours studying routes for couriers or worrying about what trucks to buy; nor did he worry about managing the 3200 people working for Freightways’ many businesses. Roger France, who had been their CFO from 1985, watched the Gibbs–Farmer partnership from close quarters."