Latest / Best of Business / Grant Baker: NZ Businessman and Entrepreneur on his decades of success and failures, new book 'No Pit Stops: The Business Of Going All In'

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Grant Baker: NZ Businessman and Entrepreneur on his decades of success and failures, new book 'No Pit Stops: The Business Of Going All In' · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from news Talk zed be
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  Speaker 1: follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
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  Speaker 2: Grant Baker one of the country's great success stories. He
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  Speaker 2: is what you would call a serial entrepreneur. Couple of
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  Speaker 2: examples being well forty two below and Turners would be
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  Speaker 2: two good ones. Are also set up the Gut Cancer Foundation,
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  Speaker 2: and in the next few moments we undoubtedly get to
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  Speaker 2: the fact he was He's got a fairly solid collection
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  Speaker 2: of cars as well. Anyways, book is called No Pit
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  Speaker 2: Stops The Business of Going All In and Grant Baker's
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  Speaker 2: we this morning, good to see you In reading this book.
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  Speaker 2: You took me back Xerox and you books.
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  Speaker 3: That's right.
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  Speaker 2: Xerox as a photocopy as yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And keyboard products is what I used to be involved
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  Speaker 3: in there.
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  Speaker 2: Also back to Eric Watson. So when you work with
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  Speaker 2: Eric Watson, what was the name of the company with
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  Speaker 2: Eric Watson as blue Star, blue Star, So you were
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  Speaker 2: a CEO at that point, is that right?
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  Speaker 3: That's right. I used to work at Xerox with Eric
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  Speaker 3: and he went from zero and bought a company called
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  Speaker 3: Blue Star, which was a small office products company, and
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  Speaker 3: he rang out one day and said, you know, I
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  Speaker 3: was working at Telecom at that time, and he said,
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  Speaker 3: you're wasting your time in here at Telecom. Come and
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  Speaker 3: work with me. I'm going to build this into one
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  Speaker 3: hundred million dollar company. So yeah, long story short, that's
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  Speaker 3: what that's what we did.
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  Speaker 2: At that point. Were you an entrepreneur or what you
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  Speaker 2: would consider an entrepreneur, or were you're a CEO?
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  Speaker 3: Well neither was. I was a sales manager and working
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  Speaker 3: for someone else, right.
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  Speaker 2: So the entrepreneur or flair or spirit or desire came
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  Speaker 2: when and from where I'd.
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  Speaker 3: Always been a bit like that, and my wife and
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  Speaker 3: I invest in property and those sort of things in
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  Speaker 3: traditional Chimi way, but we never got much traction anything.
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  Speaker 3: So Eric was a bit of a follow of Graham
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  Speaker 3: Heart and so he'd started his entrepreneurial journey. And yeah,
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  Speaker 3: when he laid out the opportunity, I just thought, well,
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  Speaker 3: I've got to do something. You know, I was in
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  Speaker 3: my mid thirties at that time. For no pull finger now,
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  Speaker 3: I never will.
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  Speaker 2: Good on you. And so you've got a stake in
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  Speaker 2: the company. The company got sold. Eventually you came out
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  Speaker 2: with a bit of dough.
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  Speaker 3: Yep.
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  Speaker 2: The rest as they say, is history.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, quite a long history. It's a fair while
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  Speaker 3: ago now.
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  Speaker 2: Indeed, so they say, the entrepreneurial aspect of it is
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  Speaker 2: you've got to lose a lot before you win, and
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  Speaker 2: you don't take the losses that badly. Is that a
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  Speaker 2: reasonable assessment.
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  Speaker 3: I think that's absolutely true. I made some horrendous mistakes
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  Speaker 3: and continue to do so.
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  Speaker 2: And well, is that true? Really?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I reckon I could be at least one hundred
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  Speaker 3: million dollars richer if I hadn't made three or four mistakes.
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  Speaker 2: So the mistakes were what work us through one? What
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  Speaker 2: went wrong? And was it your fault?
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  Speaker 3: Well, i'll tell you one that was quite simple. When
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  Speaker 3: Rodgery listed zero, I was one of the foundation shareholders there,
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  Speaker 3: it brought some shares, bought two hundred grand's worth of shares,
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  Speaker 3: and it went up in the early days, got to
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  Speaker 3: four hundred grand, and I thought, well, hey, I'm in
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  Speaker 3: a great result. And yeah, if I had those shapes,
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  Speaker 3: I sold them for four hundred grand, and if I
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  Speaker 3: had them today, they'd be worth about forty million. So yeah,
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  Speaker 3: that was a bit of a stuff.
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  Speaker 2: Although you still gained though, didn't you. It wasn't like
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  Speaker 2: you invested in it went bust.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, I definitely, definitely. I haven't really done anything like that.
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  Speaker 2: No, the forty two below story and I think trilogy
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  Speaker 2: was the same. It was it was people making stuff
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  Speaker 2: and garages.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was that. Yeah, typical key sort of the.
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  Speaker 2: Forty two below story. You see Jeff Ross in a
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  Speaker 2: garage with his vodka. What is it you're seeing?
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  Speaker 3: I think, I mean, I thought he was a good
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  Speaker 3: guy when I met him, like I liked him, although
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  Speaker 3: completely different people. But it's probably the scalability of that business.
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  Speaker 3: You know, liquor's a big category, and within that category,
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  Speaker 3: vodka is a really big category.
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  Speaker 2: And you knew that or you went and learned that. No,
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  Speaker 2: we learned that, right, so you thought this could be
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  Speaker 2: a possibility. I'll go study up, I'll work it, and
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  Speaker 2: the rest once again, as they said.
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  Speaker 3: That's right. I mean, it's hard to build a big
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  Speaker 3: business just selling stuff in New Zealand.
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  Speaker 2: How much of it's just about heft. So if you
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  Speaker 2: see Jeff and the garage with the vodka, financial heft
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  Speaker 2: will get you where you need to go, as opposed
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  Speaker 2: to sheer brilliance.
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  Speaker 3: Well, it's a bit of both. Hard to do without money.
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  Speaker 3: Jeff sort of got a favorite saying, as Inness Rutherford one,
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  Speaker 3: we had no money, so we had to think and
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  Speaker 3: and he had thought a lot and done a lot
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  Speaker 3: of good things, but we definitely needed money. But we
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  Speaker 3: didn't put a huge amount of money into that. It
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  Speaker 3: was a couple of million dollars at the time, and yeah,
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  Speaker 3: a couple of million New Zealand dollars and we ended
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  Speaker 3: up selling it first.
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  Speaker 2: And then the long comes Bacardi. The question Texter actually
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  Speaker 2: asked before the news about you know, the you know,
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  Speaker 2: the Labor Party's future funder. You up on that and
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  Speaker 2: the idea that you have capital markets, you grow the
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  Speaker 2: capital markets, they stay here in the country. If there
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  Speaker 2: was money around when Bacardi came knocking, would any of
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  Speaker 2: that make any difference or were you selling to somebody
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  Speaker 2: who could do something for you.
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  Speaker 3: Well, it might have made it difference. I mean, I
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  Speaker 3: think raising capital is hard in New Zealand and when
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  Speaker 3: we did the listening of forty two below, we were
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  Speaker 3: roundly criticized for it. Said, you know, the nng X
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  Speaker 3: is not the place for that, but in my view
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  Speaker 3: it is the place for that. It's you know, if
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  Speaker 3: you want to raise money. That's the place.
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  Speaker 2: See how does that? How does that work? Because is
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  Speaker 2: vodka on the share market Booze on the share market?
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  Speaker 2: Why not?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I agree, there's no reason why not.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, but people were saying this is not It.
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  Speaker 3: Wasn't Booze in particular. It was just you know, the
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  Speaker 3: valuation we had, and that we were raising money for growth,
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  Speaker 3: and we took a software company type approach where we
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  Speaker 3: were going to pump a lot of money into sales
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  Speaker 3: and grow big quickly and not worry about making a profit,
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  Speaker 3: just worrying about making a big company.
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  Speaker 2: So, once you've done it with vodka, do you want
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  Speaker 2: to do it again with booze? Or do you pivot
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  Speaker 2: to something else? In other words, can you do the
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  Speaker 2: same trick twice?
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  Speaker 3: Well? We did. We brought into a company called Trilogy.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's candles though.
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  Speaker 3: Well yeah, sort of. Trilogy is mainly skincare, so we did.
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  Speaker 3: We did do candles as well. We did a brand
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  Speaker 3: called a Choir, but Trilogy is skincare, women's skincare and
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  Speaker 3: are We had a hero product called Rosa oil, which yeah,
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  Speaker 3: apparently is really good on your skin.
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  Speaker 2: Did you know that? Again? So you must have done
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  Speaker 2: the homework again.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, and we got an IMS through KPMG, I think,
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  Speaker 3: But just yeah, we bought that business. It was it
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  Speaker 3: was quite small, was turning. I can't remember the t
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  Speaker 3: about ten million, I think, and we paid eight ten
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  Speaker 3: million for us. It was a reasonable size acquisition for
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  Speaker 3: us at that time. But yeah, just the scalability of
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  Speaker 3: it was huge, and we made it four or five
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  Speaker 3: times as big as it was. We did a few
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  Speaker 3: acquisite other acquisitions as well, so I think we turned
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  Speaker 3: that from being a ten million dollar business to a
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  Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty million dollar business. And yeah, and
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  Speaker 3: sold it.
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  Speaker 2: Is this all fun or are you there for the dough?
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  Speaker 3: Well a bit of both. You know, you have fun
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  Speaker 3: times for sure. You know you like going back to
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  Speaker 3: the forty two below days. Like I'm not much of
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  Speaker 3: a drink or anything, but you sort of end up
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  Speaker 3: drinking because you're in your places where lots of drinks
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  Speaker 3: are served. And for a few times I was sitting
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  Speaker 3: on a bars door knowing I couldn't get off it.
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  Speaker 3: You know this, I fell off.
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  Speaker 2: Do you have to like the people you're in business with?
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  Speaker 3: Oh, for sure, for sure. I think it's all about teamwork.
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  Speaker 3: You know, I don't think by far the most brilliant
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  Speaker 3: go in the world, but I think I've had a
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  Speaker 3: lot of good people around me, which you really help.
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  Speaker 2: Guest Is Grant Baker's book has called No Pit Stops
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  Speaker 2: the Business of Going all and before we get to
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  Speaker 2: the cars, because people don't know you, you would have
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  Speaker 2: the biggest Ferrari collection in the country, and if not
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  Speaker 2: very close.
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  Speaker 3: I'd say the second biggest.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, the second biggest in the country. And you're also
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  Speaker 2: closely connected with Liam Lawson, who I am, who we love,
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  Speaker 2: so we need to ask about that. But the Turner's story,
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  Speaker 2: Tina Turner's Cars, the whole thing is that as it's
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  Speaker 2: alive and real now and you're the chairman of the
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  Speaker 2: board and have been for years, is that the greatest
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  Speaker 2: success and joy or not? Really?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it is. It's definitely my best financial success. And
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  Speaker 3: plus I really like being in the business. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: you asked before, did I like what I was doing?
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  Speaker 3: And you know, not always? But I love Turners.
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  Speaker 2: What's happened with Turners? That's so magical? Where is that magic?
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  Speaker 3: I just think we've taken a concept that no one
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  Speaker 3: else in the world has done, so we've got an
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  Speaker 3: integrated car dealership where we sell finance, insurance. Well, lots
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  Speaker 3: of people sell those things, but we own those companies.
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  Speaker 3: So we own our own finance company, we own our
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  Speaker 3: own own insurance company. We've got an underwriting license. And yeah,
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  Speaker 3: we've got a lot of branches. We got thirty eight branches.
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  Speaker 2: Now, see when you explain that we own the car,
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  Speaker 2: we own the insurance, and we own the finance. That
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  Speaker 2: sounds so simple, and yet you're still telling me no
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  Speaker 2: one else does it.
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  Speaker 3: No one else as far as we're aware, in the
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  Speaker 3: world does it. But they're quite different businesses to run.
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  Speaker 3: Being a car dealer is a lot different to running
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  Speaker 3: a finance company, to running an insurance company.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, my guess is there's no real money in the car.
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  Speaker 2: The money's and the money afterwards.
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  Speaker 3: There's a bit of everything. I mean, we sell a
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  Speaker 3: lot of cars. Were sell over one hundred cars a week,
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  Speaker 3: sorry a day, not a week. Sometimes a thousand cars
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  Speaker 3: a week.
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  Speaker 2: But your margin on a cheapish car wouldn't be great.
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  Speaker 3: Our average margin would be somewhere from sort of seven
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  Speaker 3: hundred to one thousand dollars.
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  Speaker 2: So then you but you're clipping the ticket on the
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  Speaker 2: insurance and you're clipping it on the finance, aren't you?
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  Speaker 3: Yes? Correct?
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  Speaker 2: Do most people finance cars still?
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  Speaker 3: I'd say most people do. The ones we finance director
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  Speaker 3: about a third or what we sell, but they go
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  Speaker 3: and finance through the bentess.
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  Speaker 2: How did you get involved with Liam.
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  Speaker 3: Coach by a guy called Grant McDonald who had helped
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  Speaker 3: him out. Yeah, he managed him in the early days
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  Speaker 3: and helped him out financially and mentored him. And he
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: approached me and said, you know, I've got this young
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  Speaker 3: guy is really good. We want to send into Australia,
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: but we can't afford the fe is and would you pay?
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  Speaker 3: And I sort of said, I've been involved with a
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  Speaker 3: lot of drivers before, and I thought, I don't know
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  Speaker 3: if I want to do that. Really, I don't want
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: to put any more money in anyway.
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  Speaker 2: I went.
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  Speaker 3: I asked Dona, I said what do you think? And
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: she said, oh, you know, why not? It's four grand
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: you know why not do it? So we paid his
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: fees over to Australia and he went to Formula four
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  Speaker 3: and came second in that championship. Having never driven a
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: car with slecks or wings on it or anything. Well, yeah,
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: obviously meet him during that time and dealt with him
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  Speaker 3: a bit, and it's really nice.
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  Speaker 2: Games a good guy. He's a good guy. So you're in.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Is there something fundamentally wrong with motorsport that you need?
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  Speaker 2: You guys? I mean, in other words, you can be
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  Speaker 2: the greatest talent in the world and lesson's money you're
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  Speaker 2: going nowhere.
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  Speaker 3: That is one hundred percent true. And it's not a
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  Speaker 3: small amount of money either. I mean even to run
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: a kid in carts today, you know, you take your
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  Speaker 3: seven year old kid to karting could be one hundred
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  Speaker 3: hundred and fifty grand a year.
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  Speaker 2: Where Yeah, so by the time you get to f one,
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  Speaker 2: it's many millions, isn't it.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I'd say, in Liam's case, it's probably somewhere between
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  Speaker 3: fifteen and twenty million. And today, if you're doing it today,
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  Speaker 3: I'd say it's double that.
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  Speaker 2: That's amazing. You're in for how much a lot of that?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I was personal supporter, I'd say I put a
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: hell of a lot of time, but on a few
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: hundred grand I'll put in.
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  Speaker 2: So you're you're enjoying it. It's the idea I understood
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: it is that you know, once they make their millions
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: and they've become Michael Schumacher and all that sort of stuff.
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  Speaker 2: They pay you back. I'm assuming you go in with
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: no expectation that you'll get the money back.
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  Speaker 3: No, totally not like I supported them personally, and Turners
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: supported and Play plus a lot of other people. Yeah,
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: because we've got a lot of money out in New Zealand.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: I'd say out of that fifteen million bucks, we've probably
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: got sex or seven of that out in New Zealand.
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  Speaker 3: It's incredible, really, it.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: Gets you access. I'm assuming to the back of the
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: garage when you want to go to an EF one meeting.
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  Speaker 3: Though. It's fantastic because when I go, I normally go
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  Speaker 3: with Liam and the car, so you get to drive
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  Speaker 3: into the track and how cool you know? Yeah, it is.
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  Speaker 3: It is the key.
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  Speaker 2: He doesn't seem to have changed either in his time
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: at IF one. He seems he's a little more confident
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  Speaker 2: than he used to be, but he's still essentially who
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: he was.
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  Speaker 3: He's the same guy, and he's withstood a huge amount
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  Speaker 3: of pressure. Like the pressure is unbelievable. Yes, exactly.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: Proud of your cars, how many you got? They're all
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: ferraris my collection cars are or Ferraris, but my day
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: to day car is not a Ferrari. Okay, So you
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: collect Ferraris to do what to admire them, and I.
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: Just love the brand. I do love driving them, but
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  Speaker 3: I've got nine cars at the moment, so it's quite
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: hard to drive nine cars, and especially when I live
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: like really close to where I keep the cars. I got. Yeah,
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: not much course to drive them, but yeah, I love
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: the brand.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: So you just just for people who don't follow cars.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: Your new car, which you haven't got, is a F eighty.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: The F eight is the it's their hero car. How
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: much is a near Fati?
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: It's about eight million backs, right?
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  Speaker 2: Do you think that's worth it? At what point does
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: it not? I mean, would you pay anything when they
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: ring you up and say here's our car. It's nine million,
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: ten million?
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, if I had that much, have I had
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: the money at the time, I'm a sucker for everything.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Eight million dollars worth of car and you'll drive it?
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I definitely drive it hard. I'll track it for sure.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: I mean it's twelve hundred and fifty horse power. You
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: can't not have a have a crack in the neck.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: And you just got it.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: So the twelve hundred and fifty. Interestingly enough, is some
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: of that's hybrid of course. Do you have a view
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: on hybrid v EV slash petrol.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean I don't like pure battery, but
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: I like hybrid. I love hig. I've got a few
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: hybrid cars and they're fantastic.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: What's your favorite Ferrari.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: I've got one called the eight one two Competizioni and
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: that would be my favorite one.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: So the compezzi one is the sporty version of the
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: eight twelve, yes eight twelve supermast, which is which So
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: that's an eight hundred thousand dollars car plus the extra
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: for the Compezzione.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was about I think at the time about
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: one point three or something like that. Yeah, but it's
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: they're worth a lot more now second hand.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Good on you listen, Congratulations on the book and do
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: great stories. Good to talk with you. Yes, thanks for
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: it very much, Grant Baker.
• 13:15
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