Obituary: Tony Gibbs - Corporate raider with heart of gold

Tony Gibbs has passed away, aged 72. Photo / Paul Estcourt

Tony Gibbs, one of the most colourful and prominent business leaders from the golden era of corporate raids and takeovers, has passed away aged 72.

Gibbs will be remembered by many in the business world for his high-profile role in investment company Guinness Peat Group (GPG), which was active in a number of takeovers through the 1990s and 2000s.

He played a key role in the development of New Zealand companies such as ENZA, Fletcher Forests and Tower Insurance and was chair of Turners & Growers from 1995 to 2011.

Turners & Growers was very grateful to Tony and his family for their passion, commitment and lifelong relationship, said T&G Global chief executive Gareth Edgecombe.

His time with Turners & Growers led to a passion for horticulture.

Gibbs spent his later years running mandarin and avocado orchards in Matakana and Tapora.

Gibbs was the definition of the self-made man.

Born in working-class Romford on the outskirts of London, his family immigrated to New Zealand when he was 4.

"Bored and restless" at school, he never settled in the quiet world of 1960s New Zealand.

At just 15 he ran away to sea, getting a job on a ship carrying frozen lamb carcases from Lyttelton to England.

He travelled the world, living and working everywhere from a Kibbutz in Israel, where he herded cattle on horseback, to working the phones and the customers in a London export business.

In London, the 23-year-old met his English wife-to-be, Val. They married six months later, eventually returning to New Zealand where they raised daughter Charlotte and son Anthony.

In New Zealand, with no formal educational qualifications, Gibbs set up a sporting goods import-export business, dealing in everything from slate to balls for billiards tables.

In 1978, just before his 30th birthday, he sold the business.

"For the first time in my life I had some money,'' he told the Herald in 2001.

He began investing in property and the stock market, which brought him into contact with Brierley Investments which had just opened an Auckland office.

Founder Sir Ron Brierley saw his potential "and asked me if I'd like to babysit it".

After years of working to build GPG, Gibbs fell out with its founder, Brierley, in a highly publicised corporate stoush.

Brierley sacked him from the board in 2010.

In 2009, Gibbs was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to business.

The Governor-General Sir Anand Satyanand talks with Tony Gibbs after he presented Gibbs with the insignia of a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. Photo / Greg Bowker

He was awarded the NZ Shareholders Association Beacon Award for business leadership in 2007.

Bruce Sheppard, who chaired the NZSA at the time, said Gibbs had a wonderful knack of being right more often than not.

He brought "an ordinary bloke's sense of morality and justice" to business, Sheppard said.

"There was no pretence, no fakeness, you got what you saw with Tony. He was real."

Former GPG chairman Rob Campbell said he enjoyed working with Gibbs on big corporate deals and fighting him on others.

"That's business when you play for keeps like Tony (and I) do. But [he's] a man I deeply value and will miss," Campbell said.

"The world and capital markets are the poorer for losing a character like Tony Gibbs."

Gibbs was the inaugural patron of the Howard League for Penal Reform, working closely with the late Peter Williams QC.

After a short battle with cancer, Gibbs passed away peacefully at home in Matakana surrounded by family.