From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Part of the series on Australian criminals

Bank robbers Bushrangers Convicts Criminals Drug traffickers Fraudsters Murderers Serial killers Prisoners Rapists and sex-offenders

International Criminals by nationality

This box: view • talk • edit

Alan Bond (born 22 April 1938) is an Australian businessman famous for high-profile business ventures, including what was at the time the biggest corporate collapse in Australian history, and for which he was convicted of fraud and sent to jail. Bond was born in the Hammersmith district of London, England, and emigrated to Australia with his parents and sister Geraldine in 1950. Beginning his career as a signwriter he formed what was to be Bond Corporation in 1959. He became a public hero in his adopted country after bankrolling challenges for the yachting trophy the America's Cup, which resulted in his selection as Australian of the Year in 1978. He finally won the trophy (which had been held by the U.S. since 1851) in 1983.

Lippo Centre, 1987, Developed by Alan Bond, a landmark building in Hong Kong

The Perth-based Bond made his fortune initially in property development and at one time was one of Australia's most prominent businesspeople. In 1970 he acquired three America's Cup bid yachts from Sir Frank Packer. He later extended his business interests into other fields including brewing (he controlled Castlemaine Tooheys and G. Heileman Brewing Company in La Crosse, Wisconsin), gold mining and television. Australia's first private university, Bond University, bears his name.

He purchased QTQ-9, Brisbane and settled an outstanding defamation dispute the station had with the Queensland premier, Joh Bjelke-Petersen by paying out AUD$400,000. He said in a television interview several years later that he paid because "Sir Joh left no doubt that if we were going to continue to do business successfully in Queensland then he expected the matter to be resolved".

In 1987, Bond purchased Vincent Van Gogh's renowned painting, Irises,^[1] for $54 million — at the time a world record for a single painting. The purchase was however funded by a substantial loan from the auctioneer, Sotheby's, which Bond subsequently refused to repay and the painting was re-sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles in 1990.

Also in 1987, he was the developer of the Bond Center constructed in Hong Kong. It is currently known as the Lippo Centre, Hong Kong.

In 1987 he paid $1 billion for the Australia-wide Nine television network from Kerry Packer's PBL. In a 2003 interview with Andrew Denton, Bond described the negotiations as follows:

"...when we first sat down, we said, 'We're either going to sell our stations to you for $400 million, or you're going to sell your stations to us.' And he said, 'Well, I don't really want to sell my stations.' And I said, 'Oh, is that right?' So, anyway, after much discussion, Kerry thumped the table and said, 'Listen, if you can pay me $1 billion, I'll sell them to you, otherwise bugger off...' then I rang the National Australia Bank. I said, 'Look, I'm in discussions here to buy these television stations. Kerry will sell to me, and what I want to do is put our stations together and then, with Sky Channel, I'm going to float it off as a separate entity and raise the capital to pay for it... [Packer] said $1 billion [was his asking price], but I think I'll get it for $800 million...' [The bank manager] duly rang back and said yes. I said, 'Thank God. I'll go and have some further negotiations with Kerry,' which I did. And true to his word, he never budged one penny off it. So I settled the deal with $800 million and a $200 million note. So he put his own $200 million in. So I had $1 billion. And we put our other two stations up as collateral, which were worth probably $400 million."^[2]

Bond later ended up selling the network back to PBL in 1990 for $250 million in the midst of his business empire collapsing. Packer was quoted as saying "You only get one Alan Bond in your lifetime".^[2]

He later went to jail, serving three years, for perpetrating Australia's biggest corporate fraud, AUD 1.2 billion against Bell Group.^[2]

In 1995 Bond and his family bought him out of bankruptcy, using about $12 million they held in offshore trusts to reach an arrangement with creditors who were owed $1.8 billion, a payout of a little over half a cent on the dollar.

Since 2004, interests related to the Bond family have held a large block of non-voting shares in Madagascar Oil, a business he cofounded with Sam Malin and Robert Nelson. Interests related to the Bond family also control Lesotho Diamond Corporation which is developing the Kao diamond pipe in the Kingdom of Lesotho.

• Paul Barry, The Rise And Fall Of Alan Bond, Bantam Books, 1991 ISBN 1-86359-037-4
• Alan Bond and Rob Mundle, Bond, HarperCollinsPublishers Pty Limited, 2004 ISBN 0-7322-7494-X

• Official website