The MONEY MEN
REVEALED: The richlisters keeping Team NZ afloat
Just minutes after a victorious Emirates Team New Zealand thrashed Artemis and won the Louis Vuitton Cup in Bermuda, two jubilant men clambered aboard the Kiwi boat to congratulate Peter Burling, Glenn Ashby and their crew.
These two men, Team New Zealand benefactors and loyal stalwarts Auckland businessman Sir Stephen Tindall and Swiss Italian businessman Dr Matteo de Nora, could hardly contain their glee as they hugged, back-slapped, shook hands, dodged sprays of champagne and grinned like Cheshire cats.
True, it wasn’t the America’s Cup but it was a giant wing span in the right direction.
And it was a day they had both worked hard behind the scenes to achieve. Over the years they have jointly invested their personal wealth to make sure Team NZ stays afloat. Neither will say how much but admit to “many millions” of dollars.
Both of them are single-mindedly determined — in the manner of people who are successful at what they do — to bring the America’s Cup back to New Zealand.
For the past four years Sir Stephen has chaired Team NZ’s board, a role that has chewed into his time as the campaign has gathered pace. But his involvement goes way back, to the days when he lived on the same street as Sir Peter Blake.
Leading up to the 1995 campaign in San Diego, Sir Peter asked for Sir Stephen’s support. He funded an extra genoa for the Kiwi boat and travelled to San Diego to watch them race. He’s been a supporter ever since.
For the Valencia and San Francisco campaigns he had 10,000 flags made and transported to the Cup villages. Five thousand flags have gone to Bermuda this time round. And there have been personal cash donations.
“No money has gone from either the Warehouse Group, which includes Noel Leeming, or from any of my businesses,” he said.
For Sir Stephen, the cutting-edge technology of Team NZ’s boat is a perfect fit with his investment company K1W1 that mainly funds innovation science including Rocket Lab. Sir Stephen has been reinvesting his Warehouse Group dividends in this company for 20 years.
De Nora has been involved with Team NZ’s battle for the Cup almost as long. He watched them win in San Diego and was involved in a small way back then. But it was while watching the disastrous campaign against Alinghi in 2003 that he became emotionally tied to the Kiwis. Like the rest of New Zealand he watched in horror as a crew member used a bucket to bail water in one race, the boom broke and then, in race four, the mast. The onboard microphones caught a frustrated crew member yelling, “This f***ing boat!”
De Nora said he knew the Kiwis were better than that. And he knew he could help. He started by paying basic bills just to keep the team running. Over the years the help has amounted to much more, including the use of his superyacht Imagine as Team NZ’s hospitality boat and cargo transporter.
He has also used his influence to persuade a syndicate of wealthy private backers to help out. And, as Team Principal, he does what he’s best at — problem solving. When Team NZ’s two massive masts got stuck in Sicily in 2007 because of a trucking strike, de Nora and the Imagine crew strapped them to the deck and sailed them to Valencia.
De Nora, like Sir Stephen, is private about money and he downplays his financial contribution.
But Sir Stephen last week acknowledged de Nora’s contribution, saying he had been an “unbelievable support” over the past three campaigns.
“We owe Matteo a huge debt of gratitude,” he said. “We would not have survived had it not been for him.”
Sir Stephen and de Nora will be out in the chase boat on Bermuda’s Great Sound this morning as Team NZ races Oracle. And both will be hoping that soon, they’ll have something even better to grin about.