Tycoon rethinks plan to drop anchor in New Zealand

By FRAN O'SULLIVAN

The wind has gone out of Oracle founder Larry Ellison's proposal to start a development centre in New Zealand.

A stoked-up Ellison publicly toyed with the idea of setting up a bachelor pad and an R&D satellite office in New Zealand during his stay here late last year for the Louis Vuitton Cup.

But Jeff Henley, who controls Oracle's purse strings, says "there's not a lot of revenue over plan right now to do it".

"We're not in a very aggressive mode right now," Oracle's chief financial officer said in Sydney this week.

"Larry's always believed he wants to have developers in really attractive work environments," said Henley.

"He's felt there's a lot of developers who would love to move to New Zealand, if you will, if we could create a tech centre and we could have a really captive bunch of people who really have a good environment to live in."

Prime Minister Helen Clark and Industry New Zealand head Neil McKay met US billionaire Ellison on his yacht Katana after he told the media he had fallen in love with the Bay of Islands and was looking for land for recreation and a centre for business.

Said Henley: "He loves New Zealand; he thinks it's just gorgeous.

"But we're not really doing a lot of hiring right now, so now's probably the worst time to expect somebody to sort of step up to a new centre, you know."

Industry New Zealand was yesterday playing down the earlier discussions.

"Nothing much seems to have happened," said communications manager Debbie Gee.

Meanwhile, Henley said it was by no means sure that the billionaire would compete in the next America's Cup.

The Chris Dickson-skippered Oracle was defeated 5-0 by Russell Coutts' Alinghi in the challenger finals.

"We got a lot of recognition," said Henley.

"Had we won, it probably would have been good, but I don't think it would have made a lot of difference one way or the other to our business.

"I think Larry has indicated he might do it again, but I'm not sure he's made a decision.

"It's very expensive. It's just incredibly expensive, even if you've got as much money as Larry does ... so I don't know."