The life of O'Reilly

CARROLL DU CHATEAU spends three days with Irish Dr Tony O'Reilly and finds out why the "little red fella" who was the best on the rugby field has become the man he is today.

A few sentences into his speech - after he's told this crowd of sober-suited Christchurch businesspeople what a great place New Zealand is (with little effect) - Dr Tony O'Reilly, outgoing chairman of Heinz Wattie, owner of a newspaper empire that stretches from Dublin, to London, to South Africa, Australia and New Zealand including the Herald, decides to warm them up.

The corners of his mouth twitch upwards, his eyes sparkle and he uses a conversation with a taxi driver from County Cork to illustrate his point.

Says O'Reilly, in a broad Irish accent, "There are t'ree reasons why Ireland is doing so well. First we have very computer-literate children. We have the lowest tax rate, 10 per cent for corporates, in Europe - probably the world ... " And then, with the timing of a natural actor, O'Reilly delivers the punchline. "And most importantly we're robbing the bloody Germans blind!"

When they stop laughing, the suited ones are really listening. What O'Reilly is suggesting is that New Zealand, rather than robbing the Germans as the Irish (total population 5.2 million) are doing via the "murphia" at the European Union, join the North Atlantic Free Trade Alliance (Nafta), so exploiting the huge American market.

Certainly, the formula worked for Ireland. O'Reilly, who championed his country throughout the last near 50 of its 500-year struggle with politics and poverty, points out that between 1950 and 1960 Ireland lost a million people. Now they're clamouring to get in. There's no unemployment.

"Ireland in 2005 will be the third-richest country in Europe - including, happily, Great Britain."

As always in this three-speech-a-day jetset tour round New Zealand, O'Reilly's ability to make them laugh does the trick. He stands there in his supple, dark blue double-vented suit, white collar and cuffs immaculate, yellow tie firm, relaxed, playing the audience, enjoying himself. The red hair is well and truly grey now, his fortune was valued $3 billion in Britain's Sunday Times Rich List, but there's still plenty of the lad lurking inside.

For the next 20 minutes people lap up his message about how the Irish experience, and O'Reilly's own 64 years' worth, could work as a template to get us going again.

Certainly O'Reilly, with his vast power and influence, has done his best to bring investment to New Zealand. His masterstroke on leaving Heinz last week after 30 years was to close the company's Melbourne and Japanese plants, so bringing all South-east Asian production to Hastings. Total jobs: 2000. Potential: enormous, especially if other international manufacturers follow.

Why come here when so many companies are moving out? "New Zealand has a level playing field, it's a good place to invest. And New Zealanders are very special and wonderful people. You have a very good work ethic, farming support, infrastructure - and a very competitive dollar."

O'Reilly's idea, put together from his experiences in heading business empires simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic, is clear. What New Zealand needs is the determination and guts we showed between 1984 and 1995 when we headed down the deregulation, privatisation road - a road from which he suggests there is no turning back. To protestations that Ireland and New Zealand cannot be compared, he points out similarities. Both countries were virtually forced out of attempts to withstand globalisation and become self-sufficient. Both were agriculture-based. And as he says, some of Ireland's turnaround policies could possibly be applied to New Zealand.

"We opened our frontiers to capital, embraced the marketplace ... we offered extremely generous terms of trade and subsidy. And we've got the lowest corporate tax rate in Europe."

More important, says O'Reilly, only when Ireland became affluent did people realise that "true freedom, true sovereignty was the ability to feed, clothe and educate our people of our own volition. It's now irreversible. We will never go back to the politics of isolation."

New Zealand's solution: apply to join Nafta. "If you do, you'll win - because, basically, New Zealanders are winners."

But why America, which put up tariffs against our measley lamb quota? "Because they've got money in America and it's close to the Pacific markets. There's also Canada and Mexico ... Nafta was the catalyst for growth in Canada."

What about our prized non-nuclear stance? "I wouldn't be too frightened of America." O'Reilly gives another Irish example: "We [Ireland] have rejected our neutrality, something we wore as a badge on honour, to become part of the EU. Now prosperity has made sovereignty a more complex and subtle thing."

But why is Tony O'Reilly - one of the world's four Western press barons, the highest-paid CEO in the United States, the man who spent $US3.84 million on the 40-carat diamond ring Aristotle Onassis gave to Jackie Kennedy for his second wife Chryssanthie (Chryss) Goulandris (52) - telling New Zealanders how to put the country back on the road? Because, say the cynics, he has $1.5 billion invested here. Those who know him well don't agree. Their theory? It's because of the rugby which generated a warmth, almost amounting to a love, for New Zealand. He simply wants to help. As O'Reilly says, "If I wasn't an Irishman I'd be a Kiwi."

After three days of trailing O'Reilly from his company Gulfstream 3 VP-CNP jet to royal suites, VIP cabs, cocktail parties, the Beehive to meet Helen Clark, posh lunches, radio stations, newspapers - even a Wilson and Horton-owned smart card manufacturer - it's obvious the friends are right.

There in his very Irish brain, O'Reilly associates New Zealand with those glory days of 1959 when he spent seven months in Australasia as the British Lions' 1.87m (6ft, 2in), red-headed sprinting, thinking, wonder winger. And he loves us. Although the All Blacks thrashed the Lions, O'Reilly was a hero, scoring 17 tries in 17 appearances, a hit with the girls (his first wife Susan Cameron was Australian) playing the piano in K'Rd's Hey Diddle Griddle at night, enjoying himself.

Even on the blue-and-cream leather-upholstered Gulfstream, over lobster canapes and gin and tonics in Waterford crystal, the conversation is all rugby: "What's Gregan's formula, d'you think? Did you see the Australian game? Blackadder ... the game's changed. When I played rugby the aim was to run away from the other players. Today it's to run straight into them."

But the man they liken to a red-headed Jonah Lomu is no jock. Jokes, poetry and literary quotes flow out of him. Rudyard Kipling, Oscar Wilde, Kippenberger at Monte Cassino, Alan Moorhead, Brendan Behan. As Dr Henry Kissinger said, "If there is such a thing as a renaissance man in business, that man is Tony O'Reilly."

O'Reilly is still a human dynamo. Sure, there are times when he gives his personal assistant Sabina Vidunas a sign to show he's flagging, but then the adrenalin kicks in and he's off again. Over the years he has put together a formula that smooths the kinks from everyday life: the delightful Sabina at his elbow from dawn until bedtime, gently removing empty teacups, waking him and Chryss with a cheery rendition of Oh What A Beautiful Morning, videoing his speeches for the family record, keeping the VIP cars waiting, lining up the Diet Cokes, attempting the impossible - to keep him on time.

O'Reilly doesn't believe in cosy nights by the fire."The only time we stay home is when we're expecting 50 people for dinner."

Throughout the week, when dinners finished around 1am and the faxes and phone calls started arriving, O'Reilly averaged four to five hours' sleep a night.

Despite a middle-class background - his father Jack was inspector-general of Customs - O'Reilly's early signs of brilliance were noted and fostered by his strong, beautiful mother, Aileen. "She was omnipresent," he says. "She came to all my football matches, gave me this enormous confidence. I had this sort of citadel to come back to - this coherent, intelligent woman who was humorous, extremely generous ...

"When I was a very small boy, playing the senseless sort of rugby you play when you're six, my mother asked Father Lahene, 'Which one is the best?' He said, 'the little red fella's the best.' And that became a motif between us for life. Years later I was sitting there watching her die, her liquid-brown, wide-apart eyes were willing me to say something. So I said, 'Mummy, the little red fella's still the best."' She then closed her eyes and died. She was 75.

Then there was the time that O'Reilly was awarded an orange as a prize. It was wartime. None of the kids had seen an orange before. And the opportunistic seven-year-old peeled off pieces - of skin, not flesh - and sold them for pennies a piece.

The shadow in O'Reilly's personal life was the spectre of his father's former family. This was Ireland in the 1950s. Divorce was illegal and forbidden by the Catholic church. And when Jack O'Reilly's marriage to Judith Clarke fell apart and he met Aileen, they were forced to live as simple partners. Only when Tony was 38, having known the "secret" of his other family and four half-siblings since he was 15, O'Reilly decided to break the silence. "My father was like a man let out of prison, my mother quite cast down. Mrs Clarke died seven weeks later and my parents married."

O'Reilly's own first marriage, under the pressure of six children - single, twins and triplets - in four years, plus a transatlantic career, also failed. Reports Ivan Fallon in his O'Reilly biography The Player: "Susan seldom saw Tony alone. There were always so many people staying in the house that if they wanted to be alone for a meal they had to go out."

Small wonder that the marriage crumbled slowly through the latter half of the 1980s - and that O'Reilly, by then one of the richest and most charming men in Ireland, was soon remarried. Chryss Goulandris is 12 years younger and, thanks to her late father's Greek shipping empire which she inherited at five, an immensely wealthy woman, naturally beautiful and confident. Since they married in September 1991, they have rarely spent a night apart.

As is usual in second marriages, Chryss has the mellowed version. The legendary O'Reilly pace is slowing - slightly. First wife Susan scored the babies (the first, nine months and five days after they were married in May 1961) and the pressures of O'Reilly's first serious career foray into marketing as general manager of the Irish Dairy Board with the super-successful introduction of Kerrygold butter. He was 25, an honours law graduate with a brilliant marketing mind.

Before O'Reilly, Irish butter was simply used to blend brands like Unigate and Express Dairies. It was outsold by all-comers - including New Zealand's Anchor. This was O'Reilly at his marketing best - selling the sizzle, not the sausage. With Kerrygold, which simply wrapped the butter in goldfoil and backed it with an ad campaign featuring green hills (not in Kerry) butter churns and giveaway leprechauns, O'Reilly took sales to £20 million in three years. He also used the exercise as the basis for his PhD thesis submitted to the University of Bradford - and came to the attention of international business.

So, when he attempted a joint venture between his next employer, Erin Foods, and American food giant HJ Heinz, the deal was accepted. By 1969, at 32, O'Reilly was earning a salary package worth £100,000.

Four years later, at 37, with the voice of Irish Prime Minister Jack Lynch echoing in his ears "You can't go, you've got children, mortgages" and armed with a "very astute letter saying I would only go if I could still nurture my Irish investments," O'Reilly became president and worldwide CEO based in Heinz' head office in Pittsburgh.

He then embarked on a double-life. Weekdays he worked in Pittsburgh for Heinz. Come Fridays, while the other execs made for the golf club, he climbed on a jet and headed for Dublin. "I was determined. I'd work until I dropped and be back to Ireland in three years."

By then O'Reilly's Irish empire included interests in oil and gas exploration (Atlantic Resources), Irish manufacturing, food and cars (Fitzwilton PLC). In 1973 he started his media empire, taking over Dublin's Independent newspaper, the cornerstone of Independent Newspapers, then Ireland's largest press group. The year before he became president of Heinz, he flew round the world four times and made 20 weekend Pittsburgh/Dublin trips.

One journey was to New Zealand, where he made an appointment with Sir James Wattie. O'Reilly's idea was for Heinz to take a substantial shareholding. "Sir James, who I knew quite well, told me to sit outside for a few minutes while he talked to the board. I sat there for an hour and a half, then he came out looking quite deflated. 'What did they say?' 'They told me to tell you to bugger off."'

O'Reilly, who believes in the "1 per cent inspiration, 99 per cent perspiration" maxim, waited. Twenty years later he was back with a cheque for $567 million. And this time they didn't tell him to bugger off.

By the time he stepped down from the chairmanship of Heinz after 30 years, O'Reilly had made it: Businessman of the Year (1990); America's highest corporate earner ($US3.1 million, 1996); Heinz' first non-family member to become chairman (1987) after taking the company from market capitalisation of $US900 million to $US21 billion.

He is still the largest private shareholder in Heinz, with over six million shares, chairman of Waterford Wedgewood PLC (Chryss and his son Tony are directors), chairman and co-founder of the Ireland Funds which have raised $US100 million to support Irish causes.

Then there is his communications empire. Independent News and Media PLC now controls 47 newspapers in Ireland, South Africa, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand (100 per cent of The New Zealand Herald, eight provincial papers, the Listener, Woman's Weekly and the country's largest commercial printing company) selling 15 million papers daily. O'Reilly's most recent jewel is the Belfast Telegraph, which gives INM 70 per cent of the market for Ireland. The company also runs the largest radio network in Australasia (40 New Zealand regionals) and has a controlling interest in iTouch International.

The personal empire is extensive, too. O'Reilly has four homes - Castlemartin near Dublin, others in Pittsburgh, the Bahamas and Deauville, France. His second marriage, and possibly his 16 grandchildren, have brought more balance to his life.

So what sets Tony O'Reilly apart? He ponders the question for more than an hour.

"Good health and energy which gave me the ability to shine as a sportsman. Rugby taught me training, pace and instinct. Confidence. Academic achievement. Hard work. A keen sense of danger - the ability to know when something's going to go wrong. I got breaks - and when I got them I seized them. I seem to be a natural leader, sufficiently agreeable, a good listener. I try not to assert myself. I'm determined and loyal. I'm very anxious that the people who work with me get a fair share of the cake. [During my time] at least 25 people left Heinz with $US25 million."

But probably most important is O'Reilly's drive to keep his mother's dream for him alive - to be the best little red fella on the field.