KEY POINTS:
Mike Pero featured on recent Yellow Pages advert-isements hooning about on a motorbike in the days before his mortgage broker business became a success.
And the former motorcycle mechanic did spend a lot of his time on, or under, bikes in his early days - after a stint in a cardboard box factory.
His latest venture has been similarly profitable, with the successful sale of half of his aircraft simulator business to private equity firm Ocean Partners being announced recently.
"The company has gone from humble beginnings in a small Sydenham [Christchurch] workshop to a multi-million-dollar export winning company in three years. It's a real credit to all those involved, specifically our staff."
Pero says the Pacific Simulators and Ocean Partners venture will soon expand into Australia, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the United States.
"There is huge potential with the professional trainer, which has already received industry acceptance," Pero says. "As for the entertainment and leisure market, Flight Experience continues to strive through its franchise network and opens entirely new markets for flight simulation."
By the second quarter of next year, other New Zealand investors should be able to get a stake in the company, because Pacific Simulators will be looking to a public share float.
Pero says his first million probably came without his actually realising he'd crossed that threshold.
"It would have been probably some time in the late 90s when, unbeknown to me, the company wealth was increasing - well the brand value, I guess you could call it, was increasing - and it would have gone through that threshold I'm guessing some time about 1997 to 1999.
"But you don't realise. It's public knowledge I sold it for $15 million in 2004, but the true value I think was around $500,000 in 1996 when I sold a 50 per cent share.
"So from 1996 it went from half a million to what it is today."
While some may feel that having a business successfully pushing your wealth into the millions would be a big moment, for Pero it was something happening elsewhere.
"It all goes on in the background, you've got your head down and Bob's your uncle. It's funny, you get there and you got through that threshold."
The sale of Pacific Simulators is of "a similar size" to the $15m sale of the Mike Pero business, he says.
He makes clear the thrill he feels in having just taken another business - Pacific Simulators - from humble beginnings to successful sale.
"It's pretty exciting. It started on a shoestring, so we didn't throw millions at it, but now it's grown to millions, it's been a real success."
Asked what kind of a role professional advisers such as lawyers and accountants played in his early business success, Pero accepts he perhaps did try to do too much on his own.
"It's become more and more important. I would say that it went - in the early days which is probably typical - from probably 5 per cent business advice to [now] probably 50 per cent. I involve my lawyers and financial people all the time. They are always at hand and they've played a significant role.
"You don't realise it when you're younger and when you're first in business, you think you do everything yourself. Everything we do we check with lawyers, my PA is also a lawyer, so they're at hand."
So what advice or tips can he give those seeking inspiration or encouragement from his success?
"I think business is all about timing - it's ideas and timing and, if both are perfect, then that's when it all comes together. So good timing and a good idea equals a successful result. You can have people with great ideas - but the timing is all wrong."
He uses the example of internet auction sensation Trade Me, which "maybe wouldn't have worked" had it been launched earlier than it was. "Maybe [Trade Me] wouldn't have worked 10 or 20 years ago or whatever. Timing is everything."
Many successful business people go through a variety of failures and disasters before finally hitting it big. Pero says he did have some tough times, but never came close to total failure or bankruptcy.
"You have ups and downs and bad days, but I can't say I was ever looking down the barrel of a gun. Fortunately it's never been that bad, but you do have moments when you think 'shit this is bad', but not something that's absolutely floored me."
Pero's early days in the workforce were a far cry from the life of a corporate millionaire. He left school at 16 and spent his first six months on a production line at Fibreboard Containers - a cardboard box factory in Christchurch.
He quit the factory to begin a motorbike mechanic apprenticeship, and spent the next few years fixing and racing motorbikes before taking a career turn into selling life insurance.
The next turn took him into the cockpit, training as a pilot. He then got a job flying for Mt Cook Airlines. Then, after a failed marriage (common for pilots, he says) Pero started his mortgage broking business with $6000 cash. "I had to start from ground zero."
In 1996, he joined forces with Canterbury investor Humphrey Rolleston and the successful road he'd already been travelling on became a highway. "We would have doubled the values every year thereafter," says Pero.
Pero is big on communication and action. "It's all well and good having plans and ambition, but action is what makes the difference.
"Listen, observe, communicate well, and hard work, long hours. It's been bloody hard work and a focus on goals - goals that are written down."
He says he writes down goals - even daily. "I write things down, objectives for the day. I have a clear path of where I want to go.
"People say knowledge is power, and I have that at my fingertips, but it's action of that knowledge that is power. People say 'Oh I've got all these ideas', but what are you doing about it? Have you set some goals and have you set some dates? Who is going to do that and how are you going to get there?
"They have two points on the map but no route between them. They assume they're going to get there but they don't know how.
"Business is like a combination of chess, and snakes and ladders.
"If you can merge the two, you know, you have some good days and it all goes up. Then the next day ... it's all turned to crap and you're down a snake.
"So then you have really got to think ahead and shift that castle to that space."
Pero is keeping his next move close to his chest. All he will say is: "Freight. Watch this space."
Personal profile
* Mike Pero left school at the age of 16, and his first job was in a cardboard box factory.
* He then became a motorbike mechanic for a few years before selling life insurance. Pero then took to the cockpit to fly for Mt Cook Airlines.
* He set up his mortgage broking business, which later spread nationwide, with $6000. In a survey by Colmar Brunton in June 2005, 51 per cent of New Zealanders who could name a mortgage broker said Mike Pero Mortgages was the first name that came to mind.
* After selling most of the business for $15 million, Pero is still involved in promotions.
* His latest venture, Pacific Simulators, has just reached a milestone with half being sold to a private equity company. Pero says that the deal is "similar in size" to the $15m mortgage business sale.
* He says he didn't notice when he made his first million because he was too busy working.
* Pero's keeping his cards close to this chest but hints "freight" may be his next venture.
