Bond 'the flawed face of WA business'
Alan Bond, the flawed face of WA business for more than a quarter of a century, has lost his biggest battle for survival.
The English migrant boy who was married at 17, headed a major business empire by the time he was forty, was in jail for his sixtieth birthday and the then tried to rebuild his empire in his seventies died this morning.
He was a man who took the risks many more timid people would not even dare consider and build a global business empire, but almost be bought undone in the downturns of 1961 and 1974 before finally falling into bankruptcy and disgrace after Paul Keating’s recession we had to have in 1991.
Alan Bond died both a convicted corporate crook and a former national hero who lifted Perth from obscurity to the international stage by winning the America’s Cup in 1983, only to make WA’s capital business scene the national laughing stock within a decade.
Only the resources boom of last decade would remove the stain from WA business created by his dealings and his dealmaking, including the $1.2 billion shift of cash out of Bell Resources in a failed bid to help keep afloat his ailing Bond Corp empire.
ALAN BOND - A LIFE IN PICTURES
Alan Bond with the famous boxing kangaroo
Family announce death of Alan Bond
He had gain controlled of Bell Resources and its parent Bell Group as part of his role in notorious business dealings that would become known as WA Inc, where the State Government and business figures banded together to rescue the business empires of Laurie Connell and Robert Holmes a Court.
He would outlive both of these men in a business and mortality sense, but he was too tainted by his dodgy dealings of the late 1980s to ever be considered a serious business figure again.
Yet this visionary who had predicted the rise of economic rise China and WA’s resources boom coming 25 years before it happened, but was reduced to trying to do fringe deals in fringe African countries.
Any doubts and divisions about the life of Mr Bond have always been outside the close family network that supported him through his rise from being a poor Pommy migrant all the way to the pinnacle of Australian business - and back down to jail and bankruptcy in the 1990s.
It is almost as if there have been two Alan Bonds. The roguish risk-taker who would punt his and other people's fortunes on ambitious business deals, and the nightschool bookkeeping student with a brilliant head for figures who demanded accountability from his lieutenants.
There was the former Australian of the Year who brought his adopted nation unprecedented pride in 1983 when he wrestled the America's Cup from the New York Yacht Club, prompting talk of a statue being erected in Fremantle in his honour.
This statue was not built by the time he became the face of WA's corporate excesses of the 1980s.
Whatever way we choose to look at Mr Bond's life and times, there are buildings standing around Perth that would not be there but for him, companies that might still be alive if not for him, a Gold Coast university bearing his name and even $1.7 billion of litigation proceeds sitting in a Westpac bank account that the State Government is hoping to get its hands on.
Alan Bond with second wife Diana Bliss.
His family, also, are well off. Craig Bond might be bankrupt amid a nasty legal row with his former partner Dianne Beaman but the widely respected John Bond heads the $1.5 billion-plus property syndication group Primewest and has significant interest in Primewest properties and other land through various Bond family trusts.
This fortune was probably the stuff of dreams for the young Alan Bond who arrived in Perth from London in 1950, two years after his father migrated here for the warmer weather and clearer skies. He did only one more year of school at Fremantle Boys. "I just didn't settle down to schooling here - I think this bought about a desire to go and work and earn a living," he said in an interview in 1969.
He landed a signwriting apprenticeship and got a taste of business, doing after-hours work with friends from tech college, where he continued his education studying accountancy at nights. He needed the money, having married 17-year-old Eileen Hughes in 1955 and quickly having a house full of children.
He started a signwriting and renovations company, before moving into investing and then land development as the 1950s turned into the 1960s. The ambitious young businessman had big plans to capitalise on the booming Perth population and the expansion of its suburbs, buying land in Lesmurdie and embarking on an ambitious housing lot development in what was then Darling Scarp bushland.
Alan Bond under siege in 1987 at a Bond Corporation AGM
However, his debt-driven expansion struck difficulties in the economic crunch and credit squeeze of 1961 that sent several Perth land developers to the wall. But he was able to survive and even build his land holdings as the recovery kicked off.
By 1969, he was estimated to be worth about $20 million but said in an interview with Channel 7's Syd Donovan that making money "loses the thrill once you feel you have enough". "For myself, I don't think making money is particularly important, but to succeed, the challenge is the thing which generates the motive to do something," he said.
He embarked on mining investments and land developments, as well as the first of his America's Cup tilts with Southern Cross in 1974. This failed challenge bought him anything but universal popularity, with State opposition leader Colin Jamieson saying Americans regarded him "in the same line as Frank Sinatra - rude and rich".
Just how rich he really was quickly became questionable because he was caught up in economic turmoil in the mid-1970s. Yet after asset sales, he survived and continued to expand his business interests to the point he had interests in every Australian State by 1980.
In relentless expansion, he would become known as the owner of Swan Brewery, builder of a 50-storey tower on the old Palace Hotel site and Observation City at Scarborough, developer of Kalgoorlie's Super Pit, builder of Zeppelin-style airships and owner of Channel Nine Perth.
The America's Cup win of 1983 made him a national figure and he rode the boom on the Australian sharemarket through the 1980s, entering into ever bigger and more ambitious deals using the unprecedented amounts of debt available from Australia's newly deregulated banking system.
Alan Bond and America's Cup winning skipper John Bertrand
His excesses arguably peaked in January 1987, when he paid more than $1 billion to buy the national Nine Network from Kerry Packer. Mr Packer reportedly boasted: "You only get one Alan Bond in your lifetime - and I've had mine."
Yet he survived the sharemarket crash of October 1987 and even expanded his business interests, taking control of Robert Holmes a Court's Bell group in one of the highly questionable business deals involving the State Government that would ultimately become known as WA Inc.
Arguably, the biggest mistake of his business life came when he tried to take control of hardnosed German-British businessman Tiny Rowland's Lonrho group in 1988.
Instead of acquiescing to Mr Bond, the former member of the Hitler Youth hired financial experts and public relations firms to dig deeply into Mr Bond's affairs and circulate the dirt to financiers, stockbrokers and the media.
Mr Rowland is credited with triggering the collapse of Mr Bond's corporate empire in the recession of 1991 and an array of Federal and State investigations into his financial affairs.
Alan Bond at Diana Bliss' funeral
He faced a series of criminal charges, being convicted and jailed for two separate frauds, and falling into bankruptcy.
He left Australia in 2000 with his second wife Diana Bliss to begin a new life in London, building oil and diamond interests in Africa with the help of Craig Bond.
His ambitions for a comeback to major league mining and investment were scuttled by the global financial crisis of 2008 and he was dealt a heavy personal blow in 2012 by Ms Bliss' death.
Former prime minister Bob Hawke probably best summed up Mr Bond in 2013 when he said he was "in many ways an outstanding Australian".
The challenge is the thing which generates the motive to do something.
Amid the yachting fraternity at Cowes.
