Joanne Black - No Limits: How Craig Heatley Became a Top New Zealand Entrepreneur

Despite his extraordinary networking and business skills Craig Heatley is a mystery man. Read this book and discover one of New Zealands most interesting and complex characters. MURRAY DEAKER

Craig is an exceptional entrepreneur who proves New Zealanders can do anything. CHRIS LIDDELL

To win the Dunhill PGA championship with Craig was, for both of us, a special experience. FRED COUPLES

JOANNE BLACK is an award-winning journalist. She currently lives in Washington DC, where she is a speech writer, a freelance journalist and author of the New Zealand Listeners popular Back to Black column.

First published in 2018

Copyright Joanne Black, 2018

All photographs are from Craig Heatleys collection, unless otherwise credited.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Allen & Unwin

Level 3, 228 Queen Street

Auckland 1010, New Zealand

Phone: (64 9) 377 3800

Email:

Web: www.allenandunwin.co.nz

83 Alexander Street

Crows Nest NSW 2065, Australia

Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand.

ISBN 978 1 760633 56 1

eISBN 978 1 76063 673 9

Design by Kate Barraclough

Cover design: Kate Barraclough

Cover photo: Kieran Scott

There is no saying to what length an enterprising man may push his good fortune.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, 17321799

CONTENTS

My two main recollections of first meeting Craig Heatley were the size of his house and the maturity of his children. Both were impressive. It was 2004 and at the time I was Opposition finance spokesman under Nationals leader Don Brash. Craig invited me and Don to dinner at his home in Takapuna.

Craigs name was already familiar because I had been a young investment banker in the eighties when he burst on to the finance scene. This book accurately captures some of the drama of that era, in which New Zealand went from being so over-regulated that you needed an import licence for margarine to being the envy of the world for our openness. I think that for New Zealanders of my generation, the eighties was the biggest period of upheaval that any of us will ever experience.

Nothing captured the headlines like the big companies. Brierleys, Omnicorp, Judge Corp, Equiticorp and Chase were familiar corporate names. The menit was almost exclusively men in those dayswho ran those companies were constantly in the news with their takeovers, raids and buyouts. 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.

Among them, Craig Heatley was notable for his youth and because he went from building a theme parkRainbows Endto the board of Brierleys in a very short time. He talks in this book about time slowing down as he played (and won) two prestigious pro-am golf tournaments, the 2003 AT&T Pebble Beach and the 2004 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. By contrast, in the eighties, time seemed to speed up, and Craig and his Rainbow Corporation were in the thick of some of the fastest-moving events.

All that came to an end with the 1987 sharemarket crash. More than 30 years later, some New Zealanders still talk of that event as though it is a reason not to invest in shares. But Craig was one of those who bounced back quickly. He and Terry Jarvis got together and, from scratch, built Sky TV.

It was an amazing undertaking. This book outlines how difficult and precarious their venture was. Craigs achievements in business show that he has the vision, courage and capacity to take risksbut they are calculated risks. He is diligent in his research, astute in his investments and eager for advice, but ultimately willing to carry alone the responsibility for his decisions. He so exudes trustworthiness that the only time I have seen my wife, Bronagh, relax in a helicopter is when Craig was flying it!

Since that first meeting at his house I have come to know Craig well, particularly through our shared love of golf. I have been lucky enough to visit Augusta National Golf Club with him, and there he is well liked, on first-name terms with staff and is a generous host.

When I had the pleasure of hosting former US President Barack Obama on his first visit to New Zealand in 2018, I did not hesitate to invite Craig and his son Nick to play golf with us. Craig shares some characteristics with Obamaboth exhibit considerable self-discipline and intelligence and both are great networkers. Sometimes it feels to me as though there is no one Craig does not know. It was a memorable days golf in excellent company.

One of the things I most admire about Craig is that he rarely talks about what he has achieved. Thats partly because he is always looking forward, not back, but also because he is more interested in hearing about other peoples plans, lives and achievements than he is in talking about his own. I am pleased, therefore, that this book tells his story so that others can understand his contributions. Skys current challenges should not distract from the achievement of Craig and Terry Jarvis in bringing the world in to New Zealanders homes. My childrens generation take for granted that they can watch news and sports as they happen, live, around the world. It was not always that way. It is not an understatement to say that Sky changed the way that many New Zealanders saw the world.

Finally, Craigs delight in the company of his children, Ben, Sophie, Nick and Josh, is infectious. I am honoured not only to call Craig my friend, but also to be friends with his children.

This book reflects Craigs life to date. I hope there are a lot more stories to come.

Sir John Key

Auckland, 2018

Through the closed door, Tiger Woods could hear the media. They had begun assembling ahead of his press conference because God forbid any of them should miss a ringside seat at the biggest story in the world that day. It was approaching 2 p.m. on 10 April 2010 and on every continent broadcasters, news editors, commentators, golfers and countless viewers were waiting for the worlds most recognised golfer to make his appearance.

It had been five months since news had broken that Woods had been involved in an accident, crashing his car into a fire hydrant. The first details were sketchy but more had quickly followed. Woods had been fleeing his own home, the reports said. His wife had thrown him out. Gradually, details emerged of the seedy, secret life that Woods had for years led in the shadows of his successful, glamorous public image.

But except for one appearance in front of a small, hand-picked group of journalists, staff and supporters, where Woods had read a scripted apology and allowed no questions, until now there had been no press conference. This was the medias chance and here they were, 200 of them, packed into the interview room of the media centre at Augusta National Golf Club, which in its venerable 80-year history had never hosted a press conference quite like this.

Directly outside the press centre more media were milling, cameras trained on the green building where the megastar would soon make his appearance. Had those cameras been turned in the opposite direction, viewers would have seen, just metres away, a line of trees beyond which the immaculately tended first fairway rises up to Augustas famous starting tee. For decades, the greatest golfers in the world have stood at this spot as they prepare to start each round of the annual Masters tournament, which is played at Augusta, Georgia, every April. It is one of four annual majors and the only one to be played on the same course each year.