Sky Television

"It was a time of absurdly easy credit, particularly for companies that had a track record and strong personal relationships with bankers. ‘The Bank of New Zealand would lend us anything,’ George wryly observes. ‘The bankers almost became personal friends.’ Businessman Alan Gibbs, who would become an investor in Heatley’s next project, Sky Television, describes the mid-eighties as a crazy, speculative period. ‘Between the drop in the exchange rate [after the 1984 election] and the sharemarket crash in October ’87, New Zealand had the biggest boom in its history and one of the biggest booms anywhere,’ Gibbs says. ‘Everybody’s share price went through the roof. You could make dough out of anything.’ Some companies that had depended on import licensing for their monopolies proved to be unprofitable once genuine competition appeared. As they faltered they were picked up cheaply by the new corporates. The behemoth Brierley Investments Ltd (BIL) was expert in that field. Atlas Majestic, the first stock that Heatley had purchased as a boy, was one of the companies that Gibbs took over."

"But if that wasn’t enough, 1990 had also brought Gibbs another wonderful business opportunity. Earlier in the year he’d taken a call from Craig Heatley inviting him and Trevor Farmer to invest in Sky Television, his latest business venture. Heatley, 34, had been one of the stars of the 1980s, having started out with a mini-golf course on Tamaki Drive. By 1987 his public company, Rainbow Corp, controlled 55 per cent of New Zealand’s supermarket trade through Progressive Enterprises, 20 per cent of Woolworths in Australia and significant property investments. Cannily he’d sold the business to Brierleys a few months before the stock market crash of October 1987.[28](private://read/01jrsfvkjy84rkprtbz9amfvj8/#rw-num-note-477273-050103421-28) Casting about for something to do in 1988, he started talking to someone who had a horse racing television channel in Australia called Sky. At that time, he was on Brierley’s board and they owned Dominion Breweries. He came up with the idea of having a horse racing channel exclusively in DB pubs. When his Brierley colleagues passed on the opportunity, he followed it up personally."

"He was leaving New Zealand while at the very height of his powers. Gibbs was one of the nation’s half-dozen wealthiest individuals, a leading director of its biggest public company (Telecom), co-owner of one of its most successful private companies (Freightways), a major shareholder in one of the nation’s most promising start-up companies (Sky Television), which was soon to go public, a director of its largest brewer (Lion Nathan), as well as a leading member of the Business Roundtable and of the ACT party. He might have looked forward to a gentle transition into Grand Old Man of New Zealand company directorships and a stalwart of the cocktail set. But such a lifestyle never held much appeal to him. In his late fifties he wanted fresh challenges, not to ride on past accomplishments."