world. These included floating the dollar, deregulating the financial systemand slashing tariffs. In Perth, with its history of money fever dating from the nineteenth-century gold rush, the boom of the 1980s would be bigger than anywhere else in the country. So much bigger, in fact, that Western Australia would officially declare itself the “State of Excitement”; the slogan was stamped on every new vehicle’s licence plate.
Yet it was a yachting race off the coastof Rhode Island in 1983 that had an even bigger impact on the Western Australian psyche. In September of that year, just as Forrest was settling into his new job at Benneys, a highly exuberant Perth entrepreneur called Alan Bond spearheaded Australia’s bid to wrest the America’s Cup from the venerable New York Yacht Club. Bond was already a major figure in Australian business but his bankrollingof this national sporting conquest transformed him into a popular hero and propelled him towards bigger and riskier deals that would lead him into bankruptcy, and ultimately prison for committing Australia’s biggest corporate fraud. Bob Hawke, the former Perth beer-drinking champion turned prime minister and a big fan of Bond, summed up the ebullience of the America’s Cup triumph with the immortalwords: “Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum!”
When the Auld Mug arrived in Perth after 126 years at the New York Yacht Club, an estimated 200,000 people – one-fifth of the city’s population at the time – turned out to catch a glimpse of a beaming Alan Bond in an open-top Rolls-Royce leading the ticker-tape parade. Spurred by his victory, “Bondy” went on to acquireall the trappings of wealth – a private jet, fast boats, grand properties, prized artworks and blonde mistresses – while doing multibillion-dollar business deals at a dizzying pace, all funded entirely with other people’s money. At the peak of his hubris, he even starred in a popular television advertisement for his own Swan Brewery featuring a catchy jingle with the chorus, “They said you’d nevermake it, but you finally came through.” Bond had started to believe his own legend.
One of Bond’s closest mates was Laurie Connell, a pugnacious Perth business identity whose twin passions in life were doing deals and betting colossal amounts on horseracing. Known along St Georges Terrace as “Last Resort Laurie”, Connell could always be relied upon for a loan. As one Perth businessman saidlater: “People liked going to Laurie for money. They could go in at 9am and have their money by 9.15 with very little paperwork. The interest charges didn’t matter in a bull market because they were making so much on the stockmarket with the money they got.”
What nobody knew, however, was that between 1983 and 1987 Connell was siphoning off more than $130 million of depositors’ funds fromhis firm, Rothwells, into his private interests. This had been hidden in Rothwells’ glossy annual reports through a massive fabrication of the accounts. In the official report into the inevitable collapse of Rothwells, Malcolm McCusker QC, who is now the governor of Western Australia, found that the bank was effectively broke from 1985. “Depositors [of Rothwells] would surely have been alarmedhad they known that they were, in reality, lending largely to Connell, on an unsecured basis, to finance personal acquisitions such as racehorse stables and art; and even more alarmed had they been informed that Rothwells, the company to which they believed they were lending, was effectively insolvent.”
The freewheeling business culture of Perth in the 1980s was influential in shaping theyoung Andrew Forrest. By the middle of the decade, Bond and Connell were in full flight, the sharemarket was booming and Forrest was beginning to thrive. He left Benneys in 1985, aged twenty-three, for a job as a dealer with a new stockbroking house called Kirke Securities, which had a strong focus on the
Yet it was a yachting race off the coastof Rhode Island in 1983 that had an even bigger impact on the Western Australian psyche. In September of that year, just as Forrest was settling into his new job at Benneys, a highly exuberant Perth entrepreneur called Alan Bond spearheaded Australia’s bid to wrest the America’s Cup from the venerable New York Yacht Club. Bond was already a major figure in Australian business but his bankrollingof this national sporting conquest transformed him into a popular hero and propelled him towards bigger and riskier deals that would lead him into bankruptcy, and ultimately prison for committing Australia’s biggest corporate fraud. Bob Hawke, the former Perth beer-drinking champion turned prime minister and a big fan of Bond, summed up the ebullience of the America’s Cup triumph with the immortalwords: “Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum!”
When the Auld Mug arrived in Perth after 126 years at the New York Yacht Club, an estimated 200,000 people – one-fifth of the city’s population at the time – turned out to catch a glimpse of a beaming Alan Bond in an open-top Rolls-Royce leading the ticker-tape parade. Spurred by his victory, “Bondy” went on to acquireall the trappings of wealth – a private jet, fast boats, grand properties, prized artworks and blonde mistresses – while doing multibillion-dollar business deals at a dizzying pace, all funded entirely with other people’s money. At the peak of his hubris, he even starred in a popular television advertisement for his own Swan Brewery featuring a catchy jingle with the chorus, “They said you’d nevermake it, but you finally came through.” Bond had started to believe his own legend.
One of Bond’s closest mates was Laurie Connell, a pugnacious Perth business identity whose twin passions in life were doing deals and betting colossal amounts on horseracing. Known along St Georges Terrace as “Last Resort Laurie”, Connell could always be relied upon for a loan. As one Perth businessman saidlater: “People liked going to Laurie for money. They could go in at 9am and have their money by 9.15 with very little paperwork. The interest charges didn’t matter in a bull market because they were making so much on the stockmarket with the money they got.”
What nobody knew, however, was that between 1983 and 1987 Connell was siphoning off more than $130 million of depositors’ funds fromhis firm, Rothwells, into his private interests. This had been hidden in Rothwells’ glossy annual reports through a massive fabrication of the accounts. In the official report into the inevitable collapse of Rothwells, Malcolm McCusker QC, who is now the governor of Western Australia, found that the bank was effectively broke from 1985. “Depositors [of Rothwells] would surely have been alarmedhad they known that they were, in reality, lending largely to Connell, on an unsecured basis, to finance personal acquisitions such as racehorse stables and art; and even more alarmed had they been informed that Rothwells, the company to which they believed they were lending, was effectively insolvent.”
The freewheeling business culture of Perth in the 1980s was influential in shaping theyoung Andrew Forrest. By the middle of the decade, Bond and Connell were in full flight, the sharemarket was booming and Forrest was beginning to thrive. He left Benneys in 1985, aged twenty-three, for a job as a dealer with a new stockbroking house called Kirke Securities, which had a strong focus on the
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