Heroes of New Zealand business 

Peter Barr

Sir James Wattie

The Ott Family

Jerry Rickman

Dr Gert Lau

Sir James Fletcher

The Society’s first President
Peter Barr

Peter Barr was instrumental in establishing the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants. He dedicated his life to serving the profession and the community.

Mr Barr was born in Dunedin in 1861 and educated at Otago Boys’ High School. He joined the firm of Bastings, Leary and Co. in 1888 and when Mr Leary died in 1894, Mr Barr formed Barr, Leary and Co.

Mr Barr took a close interest in the organisation of the profession and aimed to establish professional standards and a code of ethics. He was a foundation member of the Incorporated Institute of Accountants of New Zealand formed in Dunedin in 1894. He served on the Institute’s Council until 1934 and was president from 1904 to 1906. It was during his time as president that Parliament was petitioned to legislate for professional standards for accountants.

The New Zealand Society of Accountants Act became law on 15 September 1908 and established the Society, the former name of the Institute today. Mr Barr was the Society’s first president and was also the only president to be re-elected more than once. He held this position from 1909 to 1913 but continued as a Council member until 1929. He was elected a life member in 1939.

Mr Barr was greatly involved in the commercial life of Dunedin. He was secretary of the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce from 1891 to 1922 (serving 31 years) and President in 1923. He represented the New Zealand Chambers of Commerce at the Philadelphia Commercial Congress in 1899 and at the Empire Conference in Sydney in 1910. Mr Barr was elected president of the Associated New Zealand Chambers in 1925.

Mr Barr was involved in local and national politics, serving as a member of the Dunedin City Council from 1908 till 1910 and on a number of government commissions, including one on defence expenditure and one on taxation.

He was a director of many Otago companies, including the company that managed the 1925 exhibition in Dunedin, the Otago Daily Times and Witness Company and Bell Tea Company Ltd.

He was a foundation member of the Dunedin Rotary Club and served for three years as treasurer and was district governor for New Zealand in 1926. He was a treasurer of the Moray Place Congregational Church and served as Chairman of the Congregational Union of New Zealand in 1920 and 1921.

In 2003, he was posthumously inducted into New Zealand Business Hall of Fame, which was developed by the Enterprise New Zealand Trust in 1994 to recognise those who have made outstanding contributions to business and to the nation. His son, Robert Forsyth Barr, was also inducted posthumously into the Hall of Fame in 2003.

An industrialist who became a household name
Sir James Wattie

Born in North Canterbury, Sir James Wattie grew up in rural Marlborough before his family moved to farm near Hastings. After jobs running errands and packing, he took a junior clerk position in 1916 at the Hawke's Bay Farmers' Meat Company. He began a five-year correspondence course in accountancy. In 1920 he became assistant accountant. 

In 1924 Sir James moved to Roachs, the department store, as the store’s accountant. In 1925 he was secretary and then manager (1928) of Hawkes Bay Fruitgrowers. With a young accountant Harold Carr he formed a syndicate and raised money from local businessmen. They began well, canning fruit and making jam pulp, and made a profit in their first year. They registered as a company – J. Watties Canneries.

By 1936 the company processed 25,000 cans a day and had expanded to include asparagus, peas tomatoes and a range of fruit. The company succeeded through diversifying their produce to protect against frost which could damage crops. By the time of World War II, Mr Wattie had established a very successful company and war-time contracts enabled the company to grow ten-fold. Wattie’s products were a household name by the 1950s and their overseas market was also large. Her Majesty the Queen and Prince Philip visited the factory in 1954.

Sir James was well-regarded in Hastings and employed a great number of local workers, many of whom he knew by name. He was involved in various community organisations and causes, including several in the area of medicine as well as others like the children’s organisation Plunket.

He was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1963 and knighted in 1966. His tireless work created one of New Zealand’s largest companies and he contributed greatly to industry and to the country.

The Ott family's ongoing connection with the Institute

Contributed by Malcolm Ott

In 1908 at the time when the Institute was established in Dunedin my father, William A Ott, was accountant for an Invercargill stock and agency firm,  Times were prosperous towards the end of the Edwardian era, the First World War was six years away and the head offices of most of New Zealand's leading business companies were located in Dunedin.

My father joined the inaugural group in Dunedin representing Southland on the first committee of the Institute.  He was an Invercargill City Councillor at the time, soon to become Mayor, and later on he formed his own share broking and land agency business.  He became Chairman of the local Stock Exchange, the Invercargill Savings Bank, the Permanent Building Society, the Bluff Harbour Board and other Southland companies and organisations.

Some time after his first wife died he remarried and had two sons, Bruce and Malcolm Ott, both of whom became qualified accountants and Institute members.  In the 1950s they subsequently both moved to Christchurch and became partners in the Christchurch accountancy firm of JWK Lawrence & Co, which after a number of amalgamations became the Christchurch Office of Price Waterhouse in 1988.  Malcolm became an Institute Councillor and was President of the Institute in 1986-87.  They are both now retired, living in Christchurch.

There then followed the third generation of Ott Institute members with two of Bruce's sons, David, who now practises as a partner in the Christchurch firm of Ager Riley & Cocks, and Richard, Financial Controller for Market Gardeners Limited.  Malcolm's son Andrew, who is also an Institute member, is an investment advisor at Forsyth Barr Christchurch.

The Ott family is proud of its association with the Institute extending over the past 100 years and looks forward to the centennial celebrations in Dunedin later this year.

Member awarded Wintec’s
highest honour

A member of the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants has received a Fellowship, its highest honour, from Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec).

Waikato businessman Jerry Rickman received the honour on 18 March. He becomes a Fellow of Wintec. Mr Rickman contributes significantly to Waikato and the local community.

Mr Rickman has been a member of the Institute for many years. He is a former member of the Institute’s Practice Review Board, served on the continuing education committee and was an examiner.

He has been involved in a number of educational organisations – he chaired the St Paul’s Collegiate School Board and served a term on The University of Waikato Council – and donates a prize to The University of Waikato: the Jerry Rickman Prize in International Tax.

He began his accounting career in 1966 and was a partner in the Hamilton firm Beattie Rickman from 1974 to 2006 and managing partner until 2005. He now acts as a consultant to the firm, now part of and named PricewaterhouseCoopers. He worked for Price Waterhouse in Montreal and London until 1973. He was also joint managing partner of the Touche Ross offices in Auckland, Wellington and Hamilton.

In recent years Mr Rickman has been involved in many organisations as a chair, a director or as an advisor. Among several other governance roles, he currently chairs the Waikato District Health Board (he was the acting-CEO until August 2007), Learning Media Limited, Waikato Regional Airport Limited and Katolyst, a leading economic development agency providing business assistance to businesses in the Waikato region.

Mr Rickman has been former chairman of the Waikato Branch of CCS and was a foundation trustee of Sport Waikato. He continues to be involved in a number of community trusts and other organisations.

He is married to Julie with three adult children. Mr Rickman is a keen sportsman and enjoys multisport, mountain-biking, skiing and golf among other sports.

Businessman with wealth of compassion
Dr Gert August Lau

Gert Lau was born in Berlin, Germany in 1910 where his father was a branch manager of a large trading bank. Dr Lau was educated in a number of German cities and gained his doctorate in company law from the University of Leipzig.

Dr Lau worked with the Dresdener Bank in Berlin for four years and then as a business consultant for four years. He came to New Zealand in 1938 just before the outbreak of World War II, as Internal Auditor for Todd Motors Ltd., later becoming Treasurer and a member of the Board in 1945. He became a business consultant in 1946 but retained a close association with Todd Group and was a member of its board until his death in 1976.

He graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with a Master of Commerce. Dr Lau became a member of the Society of Accountants and later a Fellow.

In Leipzig, he had worked as a commercial reporter for the Telegraphen Union, the second largest German news agency. In New Zealand he retained his interest in newspapers being appointed to the Board of Blundell Bros. Ltd. In 1963 and he was a board member of Independent Newspapers Ltd.

Mr Lau contributed greatly to the business world in a business role, but also through his academic talents. He was a director of a number of companies and involved in many business organisations. Dr Lau was Chairman of the New Zealand Overseas Investment Commission, a member of the Wellington Branch Executive of the Economic Society of Australia and New Zealand and was President in 1952-4, and co-founder of the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (Inc.) in 1958, and Chairman from 1971 to his death in 1976.

He was also greatly involved in the community. He was involved in the Board of the Christian Science Church in Wellington and was a member of the executive committees of both Birthright (Wgtn) Inc. and Birthright (New Zealand) Inc., serving as President of Birthright New Zealand from 1968 to 1976.

Dr Lau was a member of the Management Committee of The Samaritans (Wellington) Inc. (and chairman in 1971) and the Investment Committee of the Salvation Army, and a member of the boards of trustees of the Sir John Ilot Trust, the Self Help Sutherland Trust and the Todd Foundation.

Dr Lau’s great business knowledge and experience made him a much sought-after speaker on business and economic topics and a well-known contributor to various business journals.

He had a happy family life with his wife and his three sons and three daughters. His obituary in The Accountants Journal, October 1976 noted Dr Lau’s great service and compassion, “a quiet man, Dr Lau nevertheless loved life and lived it fully. To his adopted land he gave most generously of his many talents and will long be remembered in the hearts of those privileged to have been associated with him.”

Industrial stalwart Sir James Fletcher dies

The Dominion Post | Thursday, 30 August 2007
Reprinted by permission.

Sir James Fletcher, the second generation son of the Fletcher dynasty, has died in Auckland. He was 92.

 His family said today he died peacefully at home yesterday. Sir James – Jim to his friends and JC to colleagues – took over as managing director of Fletchers during World War 2.

For the next 37 years, a crucial period in New Zealand's economic development, he expanded the empire with brave business decisions and a continuous battle against bureaucracy only to see it splinter after he retired.

James Muir Cameron Fletcher was the son of Sir James sen, the carpenter who arrived in New Zealand from Scotland in 1908 with a set of tools and a few pounds to establish the way to bigger business by building New Zealand's first 100 state houses.

Sir James inherited his father's charisma and unshakeable belief in big business.

In the years after World War 2, Sir James stamped his mark on the company. An observer noted his fierce loyalty to staff and their welfare.

In the 1940s Fletchers were at the forefront of worker relations bringing in a subsidised superannuation scheme, death benefits and a five pound bonus (almost a week's pay) for every child born to an employee.

During the early 1950s Fletchers joined the National Government to form Tasman Pulp and Paper at Kawerau, to process wood from the government's Kaingaroa forest. Although Fletchers had a only a small stake it scored executive control of Tasman.

By 1960 the plant was responsible for 20 per cent of the country's exports.

The firm fell foul of the government in the mid-1970s when strikes at the mill and government-imposed newsprint prices spelt trouble.
Then Prime Minister Robert Muldoon blamed Sir James, then chairman of Tasman, for the troubles; Sir James blamed the government.

Sir Robert, ignoring advice from Tasman directors, forced Sir James to resign as Tasman chairman.

Sir James was often at loggerheads with the bureaucrats whom he regarded as obstructive and frequently incompetent.

"If you wanted to build a Tasman today it'd take you up to 10 years to get through all the resource consents necessary to get things started," he said in an interview in 2001.

"Say it was going to cost $1 billion. In order to finance that you'd need half the equity and investors wouldn't get a dividend for 10 years. Who on earth in New Zealand could afford that?"

Sir James was also nationalistic in his views on ownership.
"I strongly believe that New Zealand's natural resources should be developed as far as possible by New Zealanders for New Zealand interests," he said in 1990.

He said then the government should be fostering large industries to provide some of the tools to allow them to compete internationally – including cheap power.

In that interview he summarised the dilemma of big business: "To be internationally competitive you must have a clear advantage in one form or another, for example in technology, cheaper raw materials or more productive labour or a large domestic market.

"Under current philosophies New Zealand manufacturers have no specific advantages, but they do have the great disadvantage of high transportation costs to their export markets."

But regulation and bureacrats were not to hog-tie the drive of the country's first real industrialist.

Fletchers surged and merged, taking black sand from beaches on the North Island west coast and turning it into steel – the birth of Pacific Steel – and combining with Tasman Pulp and Paper and the Challenge Corporation to form Fletcher Challenge.

By the time Sir James' work was done the company was into energy, steel, pulp and paper, forestry and timber, construction and property, fishing and banking.

Despite the success, Sir James was said to have remained a man without a hint of pretension – "one of the most down-to-earth people you could meet," said one observer.

In December 1979, after 37 years in charge, he stepped aside as managing director for his son Hugh to take over. Four months later he was knighted.

At about this time Fletcher Challenge had replaced NZ Forest Products as the country's largest listed company, a position it held until Telecom listed in the 1990s. It was the only NZ company listed on the New York, London and Australian stock exchanges. During the 1980s Sir James remained company president. He had time to devote to his passion for horse racing, the Fletcher Trust he started which, in those days, was giving away more than $1 million a year, and Fletcher's New Zealand art collection.

The art collection he started to "get something decent on the walls to replace the girlie calendars".

In 1997 he was awarded the country's highest honour, membership of the Order of New Zealand.

Sir James had simple ethics: you are required to be a fair and honest trader.

"You spend most of your waking hours in business. If you can't feel satisfied and good about what you are doing, you are wasting the better part of your life."

Sir James is survived by his wife Vaughan, Lady Fletcher, whom he married in 1942, and his other two sons, Angus and Hugh.