New Zealand Business Career
Gibbs went to London in 1963 as Third Secretary in the New Zealand High Commission, returning to New Zealand in 1965 to work in the Prime Minister’s department. He left soon after with a dream to build what he promoted as the first New Zealand car, the Anziel Nova. In New Zealand’s then highly regulated economy he failed to gain the necessary import licences to build the cars, and abandoned the scheme in 1970 after a four-year battle. Gibbs then moved to Sydney for two years, where he worked as a merchant banker, returning to set up the Chase-NBA merchant bank in Auckland in 1972. After an early retirement in 1975, he established Gibbs, Saint and Co. in 1977, specialising in corporate advisory work. This later became Gibbs Securities Ltd. Gibbs’ career took off in 1979 when, with a three other investors, he purchased Tappenden Motors Ltd. They liquidated it profitably over the next few years. Gibbs then gained stakes in Atlas Majestic Industries, Bendon and Ceramco, three prominent New Zealand public companies which he merged in 1986 and 1987 and that was liquidated in 1989. Meantime, in 1985 he and Trevor Farmer made a successful $114 million takeover bid for the publicly listed transport and security company Freightways Ltd. In early 1990 the Fourth Labour Government confirmed it would sell the Telecom Corporation of New Zealand. Together with merchant banker David Richwhite, Gibbs brokered the $4.25 billion winning bid for the company, which when subsequently floated became the largest company on the New Zealand Stock Exchange. As part of the deal, Gibbs became a director and he and Farmer took a 5 per cent holding in the company. Following a second round of restructuring, led by Gibbs, this holding proved very valuable. Also in 1990 Gibbs and Farmer invested in and worked with Graig Heatley to develop Sky TV, New Zealand’s first pay television company. Gibbs sold most of his New Zealand assets in the late 1990s, retaining Gibbs Farm and an interest in Viaduct Harbour Holdings, the owner of a new waterfront precinct in downtown Auckland and a property portfolio in Wellington with Andrew Wall.
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