Alan Bond – Hero or Villain?
Famous Australian entrepreneur Alan Bond died this week aged 77. Bond’s legacy is a complicated one and opinion is divided. Bond, however will be remembered as a person who achieved some amazing things as well as a person who did some very bad things.
Was Bond a hero or a villain? I don’t think the answer is as simple as a choosing one of these. Through sheer willpower and influence he managed to transform Bond Corp from a small Perth based business into a global empire. His tenacity and spirit allowed him to navigate challenges that many others would have simply given up on.
This same will power drove Bond to put up many challenges for the Americas Cup, eventually winning the cup after 132 years of American dominance. This is regarded as one of the greatest sporting victories in history and had a transformative effect on Fremantle.
Alan Bond’s business career is scattered with many close calls and in many instances the death of the empire was called. Bond was famously called into the offices of his bank and was told that the bank was withdrawing their debt facilities and they were re possessing the properties that secured the debt. Bond flippantly threw a large bunch of keys across the boardroom table and said to the bankers “if you can sell them for more than I can, you are welcome to them”. A prime example of Bonds larrikin business style.
Apart from the Americas Cup, Bond was instrumental in setting up Australia’s first private university, for a period put W.A on the global map and it would be fair to say he drove a sense of confidence in Australians being able to compete on a truly global scale.
His business empire was however totally debt fuelled and a lack of thorough corporate governance meant that transactions were made that were for the benefit of the directors and not the shareholders of Bond Corp. Bond Corp also paid idiotically high prices for businesses and assets in its insatiable pursuit of growth.
When the inevitable failure of the Bond Corp business transpired, many people were compromised financially. The entire Western Australian state economy was compromised by the failure of Bond Corp, due to the amount of money that the state government decided to invest in various Bond Corp dealings.
Alan Bond was eventually investigated and found guilty of conducting the states largest ever case of corporate fraud – stealing $1.2 billion dollars from Bell Resources, a company Bond Corp held a shareholding in.
I believe Bond was a visionary and flawed business leader. He seemed to operate with a high degree of hubris and with little regard for the fact that he was a custodian of shareholder funds, rather than a beneficiary. Yes he did a number of amazing things, ultimately he hurt and compromised many more people than he helped.
