Hart's rank and file

Picture / Dean Purcell

There was always an extra edge at meetings when Tim Hardman was there, recalls one former manager at New Zealand Dairy Foods.

"We all knew he was Graeme Hart's man. He was Hart's eyes and ears."

The burly Australian - sometimes described as Hart's "change agent" - had a presence that could initially be unnerving. "Perhaps it was his physique?"

But it was hard not to be impressed with his ability to cut through the complexity of the business, the former employee said.

Hardman's questions were always to the point.

"We'd get bogged down in complexities and he'd come in with a question like, why? Why can't you do that?"

Another senior NZDF manager sums up Hardman's role bluntly: he was there to "help a company change its thinking to Hart's thinking".

"He asks quite disarming questions and peels away all the BS," he says. "He gets into the business and understands where all the commercial levers are. He's very good at it."

Hardman is one of the key men in the inner executive of Hart's Rank Group, which has been until now shielded by the Kiwi billionaire's high profile.

Hardman fails to register in media archives and Google searches and, until today, no photo of him was publicly available.

The media work has always been handled by Hart - who can't avoid a profile here as one of New Zealand's richest individuals - and another of his most trusted colleagues - Burns Philp chief executive Tom Degnan.

But the dramatic events of the past two months have raised the level of public interest in Rank Group, which itself keeps a low profile in an Auckland waterfront office that has no signage.

Since the start of August, the group has completed a complicated $1.1 billion swap of dairy assets with Fonterra. It has bought a controlling stake in Carter Holt Harvey for $1.7 billion and launched a bid for total control which could cost $3.3 billion.

Then, on Thursday, Hart astounded the markets again by unveiling a deal which will see the old New Zealand food group, Goodman Fielder, reborn as a multi-billion-dollar listed company.

Not only has his team pulled off the deals, they have already started restructuring assets at the dairy and forestry operations they have taken over.

In the past week, plans to close a dairy factory in Christchurch have been unveiled and 115 workers at a CHH mill near Rotorua learnt their jobs are gone.

Even hardened market analysts have been staggered by the speed, which debunks the myth that Hart is a one-man band.

The making of an 'outstanding team'

Hart's "front-row" at Rank consists of Hardman, 43, Bryce Murray, 48, and Greg Cole, 42, all former partners of professional services firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.

Melbourne-based Hardman met Hart in 1997 when he was still with Deloitte, where he had been for 20 years. He spent two years advising on the restructuring of Burns Philp.

Hardman describes himself as operations director, with responsibility for NZDF and Goodman Fielder in Australia and New Zealand.

Murray calls himself simply a Rank Group executive. He plays a crucial role in helping form the group's strategy and does a lot of preliminary financial work.

"He's able to straddle anything - from ops to finance, transactional to strategic," Hart says.

In fact, he says that is a common attribute of the group.

Educated at Waikato University and now based in Auckland, Murray met Hart 18 years ago - as a Deloitte adviser. He was finance chief at Whitcoulls - which Hart and Rank owned - from 1992 until 1996.

Completing the ex-Deloitte trio is Cole, who has been Rank's chief financial officer since 2004. He was a tax specialist at Deloitte, where he worked in Auckland and New York.

Hart has never been comfortable with the perception that he is a sole operator. When he contacted the Herald yesterday morning, he said he wanted to be sure we got this article right and added his own comments (a rare media event).

He was determined to make the point that his team is broad-based.

He said it would be wrong to assume that all the wheeling and dealing was done by just four or five guys.

He cites his PA, Linda Scott, as one of Rank's key people.

"She'll cringe at this ... but she is the glue that keeps us all together," he says.

And there are plenty of others, Hart says, reeling off a rapid-fire list: Russel Martin, Graham Brown, David Brown, Murray Scott, Stephen Davies, Stephen James and Allen Hugli.

"The point is that it is a small office but I am surrounded by outstanding individuals. I have been for a long time and, without them, I'd be wheel-spinning."

The key to success had been getting a good team.

"And when you get a good team, you've got to provide good leadership or you won't hold a good team."

People could not be "bribed" to stay for the long haul.

In the end, people stayed because they enjoyed what they were doing.

Degnan says the dynamic environment appeals to him.

"I think Graeme manages his organisations similar to the way that Burns Philp is managed. It's lean, everybody gets an opportunity to participate and we move fairly rapidly."

Degnan, 57, is one of the most important non-Rank executives in Hart's team.

An American now based in Sydney, he spent 24 years with one food ingredients business based in Milwaukee.

Like Hart (who had a tow-truck) he started his career driving trucks.

He was recruited to manage Burns Philp in 1997, shortly before Hart took it over.

"Fortuitously" the pair hit it off and have worked closely ever since.

"Burns is a subsidiary of Rank but the two of us work together like hand and glove," Hart says.

The management of the companies Rank owned was another key piece of the jigsaw.

"I don't run Goodman Fielder's bake business or Bluebird Foods. Sure our team is influential - pivotal at times - but when you've got the span of control we have, you have to have good management," Hart says.

One of the first things the Rank team does when taking over a company is to work out "the good people".

"We let the people we are not comfortable with go and we build on the good people."

Hart said the new Goodman business unveiled on Thursday would have outstanding management.

Three years ago, it didn't.

But Hart says finding great managers is not necessarily about looking outside the company.

"What you have to do is dig down in the middle, find the gems. You'll find the people who really know how the business works, frustrated people, you surface them.

"We probably put them in positions they might have been a few years short of. So what you get then is huge enthusiasm and you get a 'can-do' attitude because, man, they are going to bust their neck proving themselves."

Hart is also keen to point out the value of the relationships he maintains with the professional advisers he outsources to.

Like those within the Rank team, the relationships are long term.

"We don't shop around," he says.

In spite of having seemingly poached some of its brightest stars over the years, he still works closely with Deloitte in New Zealand.

His investment banking is done through Credit Suisse First Boston in Australia and its New Zealand affiliate, First NZ Capital.

For all his legal work, he sticks with Bell Gully in New Zealand and Freehills in Australia.

His determination to see these organisations recognised shows the store he places on loyalty.

"It sounds a bit cliche-ish but, with all these people, support from home is critical.

"It starts and finishes with your wife or spouse. We're all family people. These sorts of things are often just not recognised."

Additional reporting, Andrea Fox