Bank of China, Lippo Centre, United Building

I spent some time this weekend with some good friends whom I hadn’t seen for a while, at a venue that is newly opened under a totally different name and possibly, owner. Turnover of restaurants in HK is quite high due to the ever increasing cost of rent.

On my walk over, I caught a glimpse of the striking architecture of the Lippo Centre in Admiralty. It is one of the 974 things I like about Hong Kong.

Without fail, it reminds me of koalas hugging eucalyptus trees and Alan Bond.

It also reminds me of tenacity and spirit. Not giving up.

It says “Australia” to me.

He owned these buildings during the construction phase and rumour has it, he wanted something to remind him of home. As I’ve never been to Perth, I have no idea how many koalas hang out on a couple of trees there, I haven’t seen anything like it on the eastern seaboard. Koalas on the east coast don’t tend to share their trees.

These buildings were designed by Paul Rudolph, an American architect who likes post-modern design. Construction began in 1987, Bond bought it during this phase and saw the two towers of 44 and 48 storeys respectively, completed in 1988.

Just after the stock market crash.

Some feng shui experts say the koalas are bad feng shui and that’s why the original Singapore consortium of Kwee Liong Tek needed to sell it and subsequently, Alan Bond sold to the Lippo Group. Other feng shui experts say the building is fine.

To be fair to all feng shui experts, Alan Bond was in a big pickle long before he was involved in this building.

I look to this building and think of Australia. I think of the tall poppy syndrome, how everyone is seen to be only as good as what they’ve done most recently and the importance of consistency. And selective memory. I think of onwards and upwards. I think of sucking it up and getting on with things. Or in the Australian vernacular HTFU (H does not stand for “hurry”, it is “harden”. I have to question who does these various dictionaries online at the moment which is why there’s no hyperlink to it. T is “the”, I’m sure you can work out what “F” stands for and the U, well, sound that out if you’re having a bad imagination day).

Alan Bond became a millionaire at 29 and took up sailing as a way to fit in.

Bondy bankrolled three America’s Cup attempts, starting in 1974, before winning it in 1987 with Australia II.  The first team outside of the New York Yacht Club since the race began in 1851. Bob Hawke (then Australian prime minister) famously said “any employer who sacks a worker for not coming in today is a bum!”. Shame he didn’t include school children in that statement as I remember getting up early to watch it before school and a day off would have been fantastic.

Bondy was Australian of the Year in 1978 so I guess he couldn’t win that again.

He had everyone in the palm of his hand. Deals were done, politicians bought and sold things to him at ridiculously high and low prices (always in Bondy’s favour), businessmen (that’s what they mostly were back then) hung onto his every word and he became incredibly rich. His empire was built on debt and everything he touched seemed to turn to gold. Debt-infused gold.

People were already trying to cut him down. They need not have bothered. He was to be a self-pruning poppy though he did blame everyone else.

Not surprisingly, even by his own admission, it all went to his head.

Until 1987.

The year it went pear-shaped.

That was the year he bought Channel Nine from Kerry Packer for AUD1.2 billion. He sold it back two years later at a huge loss.

He bought the Van Gough painting, Irises for USD53.9 million with Sotherbys, the auction house involved, lending him half the money. He never paid it back.

It was the year of a massive stock market crash.

The beginning of the end for him dragged like having an impacted wisdom tooth pulled out with no anaesthetic.

Still, he did set up Bond University in 1989 which was Australia’s first private university. As someone that grew up on the Gold Coast, there was a certain stigma to going there in its early days as though you weren’t successful in gaining entrance through your academic scores and had cash instead. Teenagers are cruel.

1990 saw his 35 year marriage end, his chairmanship in Bond Corporation, the company he formed in 1959 before many even knew what a corporation was, was taken away and the following year, it folded due to the large amount of debt it carried.

He was then declared bankrupt in 1992 over a loan guarantee. This meant he could no longer hold any directorships in Australia. As an entrepreneur, he began to set up businesses overseas. He married again in 1995 when the bankruptcy period had finished. Though he still couldn’t travel having surrendered his passport due to his bail conditions.

Bondy spent about four years in prison partly due to his role in bringing down a merchant bank, Rothschild, partly due to what is regarded as Australia’s biggest corporate fraud. Interestingly, the memory loss he claimed during these trials seemed to vanish after the fact. It’s said by his biographer, Paul Barry, that he spent a day in prison for each million he lost.

His personal life was a mess with one daughter dying of an accidental overdose and his second wife suiciding not that long afterward.

He died at 77, earlier this year, after being in an induced coma for three days following open heart surgery. He didn’t regain consciousness.

He lost millions for a lot of people, not just big investors, but your average mum and dad investor and it’s likely this is what he will be most remembered.

While not forgetting that, I would like to remember the spirit that took him to funding four yacht races just so he could win; how he could say with a straight face that  he had painted surrounding sandhills with green paint near a water development in West Australia so it would look better in the brochures and he could sell it for more. No, it’s not the lying, it’s the spirit and tenacity. He consistently picked himself back up, dusted himself off and went on with things. While he didn’t seem to learn so much from his mistakes, that he kept the cycle up of starting again when he was knocked down, that to me, is impressive. Where he found the funding for this remains questionable and is not really my point. Rumour has it, he had property and jewellery offshore.

He came to Australia at 12 from London, took up sign-writing at 14 or so and decided that business was for him. Did his first property deal at 22 and it was onward and upward from there. Before he was 40, he had a global reputation for his business dealings from property to breweries and quite a few things in between. Then he was on a rollercoaster.

I admire his tenacity and spirit while recognising his methods are pretty questionable to say the least.

That’s what I think of when I look up at the Lippo Centre.

That, and koalas.

* Thanks to The Simpletons for the title to this post. Two of the band, after playing in Armidale, went busk in the mall while the remainder joined us for a few beverages at home. The other two joined later noting they hadn’t had much success in the mall. I can only imagine that it was due to the time of the evening. These guys play great kick-back music, good for any bbq and just relaxing. Can also be quite thought-provoking if you choose to listen carefully to the words.