Trevor Farmer

"The faces of New Zealanders such as Alan Gibbs, Trevor Farmer, David Richwhite, Michael Fay, Bruce Judge, Bob Jones, Gary Lane and Allan Hawkins were, for a time, as familiar as our biggest sports stars."

"At Sky, John Fellet regrets that Heatley and other entrepreneurs like him, including Alan Gibbs, Trevor Farmer, Sir Michael Fay and David Richwhite, created thousands of jobs ‘then almost as quickly, they packed up and left or went underground’. Partly, he thinks that tall poppy syndrome, which as an American he had never heard of before arriving in New Zealand, played a part. ‘They were similar in not wanting attention drawn to themselves and maybe that’s just the Kiwi way, but in the US, Craig Heatley and Trevor Farmer would be actively involved in major corporations. They would be more like the Warren Buffets, adding shareholder value and, yes, enriching themselves, but also enriching the New Zealand economy. Now I am sure that they have investments that do enrich the economy but they all seem to be off on their islands, Craig on Moturua, Richwhite on Mercury Island, and it’s a pity because that kind of brain power is a huge driver of economic growth and to have it sitting on the sideline at too young an age, especially in Craig’s case, is a shame.’"

"Alan Gibbs thinks that his first conversation with Heatley about buying into Sky might have occurred when they bumped into each other on a plane. Sky did not fit Gibbs’s investment strategy. With the notable exception of the amphibious Aquada vehicles that Gibbs is developing, ‘and on which I’ve lost more money than Craig’s ever spent’, Gibbs’s business strategy has been to take over other people’s companies. Also, where possible, he tries not to invest his own money. ‘I basically never put money into anything. I make people give it to me,’ he says. But this time Gibbs and his business partner Trevor Farmer did put money in. They liked Heatley and he was persuasive."

"The following year, and now playing with a handicap of seven, he was invited to play in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, played on three courses including St Andrews, Scotland, the so-called home of golf, which arguably rivals only Augusta for the title of the world’s most prestigious club. It was an elite group in which Heatley teed off. He was partnered with professional golfer Fred Couples, Heatley’s friend Sam Reeves had arranged to partner with professional Adam Scott and, as a birthday gift, Reeves’ wife Betsey had arranged for Butch Harmon, the top-ranked golf coach in the world at the time, to caddy for Reeves. By then Heatley and Trevor Farmer co-owned a corporate jet that Heatley was licensed to fly. He flew the group from California to Scotland. They played some practice rounds and Heatley says he was panicky about the illustrious golf company he was in. ‘Here I am with two of the hottest pros in the world, and the number one coach caddying for Sam, and I was like a cat on a hot tin roof thinking, How the hell did I get in this position? I am so out of my depth.’ Heatley’s self-deprecation is disarming, but while he casts himself as the ingénue, in both business and sport he seeks out and enjoys the big league."

"Across on the mainland lies another of Heatley’s ventures—Ōmarino—described by Sotheby’s International Realty as ‘one of the world’s last perfect paradises’ and by Heatley as a labour of love. Ōmarino, with its seven north-facing bays, was once an 809-hectare farm. It was bought in 1961 by an American, John Bentzen, who saw an ad for it in *The Wall Street Journal* and did not realise there was no road access. But on flying in, he fell in love with the property and bought it. Decades later, Heatley, also with a home in the Bay of Islands, got to know him and in time they entered into some investments together. Around 2001 Bentzen, then aged in his nineties, decided to sell the farm. He wanted $20 million for it. While the price was astronomical Heatley, who bought it with a small group of friends including Trevor Farmer, says he loved the property and did not even negotiate. The new owners initially intended splitting it among themselves but over time, as most of the others gradually dropped out, Heatley bought their shares and now his family trust owns 80 per cent and another family owns the remainder."

"In this bleak environment, Gibbs did his duty for several years, devoting a couple of days a month to the Freightways board. Davis retired in 1981, leaving Gibbs as a full director. Pettigrew stepped down as managing director in 1983, being replaced by Trevor Farmer, although he remained very powerful as deputy chairman, with a small but not insignificant personal stake in the business. He was also on the board of New Zealand Forest Products. Freightways suffered from the fashion for excessive diversification that afflicted most large New Zealand companies of the era. Under Pettigrew it had bought a tinned fruit company in the Hawke’s Bay. Pettigrew had also wanted to buy a joinery company, but Gibbs fought against the idea, arguing that companies have a limited range of talents and that trying to do everything wouldn’t work for long."

"Trevor Farmer and Gibbs each independently came to the view that the market was grossly undervaluing Freightways.[11](private://read/01jrsfvkjy84rkprtbz9amfvj8/#rw-num-note-477308-556173400-11) Few observers would have picked Farmer and Gibbs as likely partners. Legends of their early boardroom battles had spread through the industry.[12](private://read/01jrsfvkjy84rkprtbz9amfvj8/#rw-num-note-477308-556173400-12) Their backgrounds were also very different; Farmer was a self-taught businessman who’d moved from building to truck driving to freight forwarding. But Gibbs had sufficient respect for Farmer’s business abilities to approach him one day. He recalls saying to Trevor: *‘This share price is nuts. The market is still marking us down heavily due to de-licensing. You and I should buy this bloody company. I could raise the dough and we could make a packet.’ ‘Aw yeah,’ Trevor said. It was extremely casual. We never had an agreement between us in writing, and it’s not as if we were even mates at that point. But we had respect for each other and agreed to do it 50/50.*"

"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."

"*TCI didn’t believe in business class. Since this was its first venture outside the United States, it had no view on 12-hour flights. So I flew to New Zealand in an economy seat and arrived early after an uncomfortable flight and went straight to a breakfast with Alan Gibbs, Trevor Farmer and two of the American directors. After exchanging pleasantries someone said, ‘John, talk a bit about your background.’ Halfway through my story Alan cuts me off. ‘You bloody Americans had the chance to do everything perfectly after World War Two, but you didn’t have the guts to take on Russia.’ Then he launched into a tirade against America’s lack of courage. I was aghast. I mean, I was born in 1953. I fought back a little bit, as best I could when I could get a word in, which wasn’t easy. I think I said, ‘Well, I’ve just met the only guy in the globe who thinks Americans aren’t sufficiently tough.’ Afterwards I said to my colleagues, ‘Jeez, that didn’t go well’, but the Americans who knew him said, ‘Oh no, I think he likes you.’ Thereafter, when things were going OK, Trevor Farmer would be there, but if Gibbs turned up we knew we were in trouble.*[30](private://read/01jrsfvkjy84rkprtbz9amfvj8/#rw-num-note-477273-050103421-30)"