Family fortunes
George Adams on NZ life
Northern Irishman George Adams came to New Zealand for a better family life 13 years ago. Ask him the reason he stayed and he’ll describe the view from his house overlooking Auckland’s Judges Bay.
‘‘We’ve loved bringing the kids up here. We’ve seen a lot of New Zealand.’’
An accountant by training, Adams had a busy career in Ireland, principally as group financial director of Molino Beverages, merging bottling companies in eastern Europe and Nigeria for Coca Cola.
In 12 months the company went from scratch to a turnover of $1 billion.
But his years of travelling was hard on family life so when the managing director’s job came up at Coca Cola Amatil, Coke’s New Zealand bottling company, he rushed to apply.
Today he is a professional director, on the boards of several well known names including Tegel and Bell Tea.
Adams is also passionate about workplace safety, having chaired the Independent Forest Safety Review which investigated a shocking rash of forestry deaths.
He also chairs the Occupational Health Advisory Board of Worksafe and the Business Leaders Health and Safety Forum. What was your first job? A painter, when I was 12 years old. It was a summer job and to this day I will not lift a paint brush! What sort of upbringing did you have? We lived in a council house until I was 11 years old. There were four of us. Dad worked as a general manager of a small business, which was a cornerstone local employer, and Mum was a stayat-home mum. But there was never much money around, but in saying that, we were never hungry, we always had clothes on our back. Did it shape your attitude towards money? I guess we were reasonably careful with money. We were never short of the important things. But I guess what it did for me is shaped my thoughts on life. Money’s not an entitlement, it’s not easy to come across and it’s really something you’ve got to work pretty hard at managing. What’s the biggest lie that people tell about money? I think there’s a notion that if you do whatever you’re happy at, you’ll never work a day in your life. But being happy at your work and poor is no fun. A certain level of pragmatism needs to exist. What advice would you give a child on the best way of making money? There are lots of ways to make money and lots of ways to be happy making money. I have read once before a quote that ‘I never set out to be great, but just set out to do great things’. And I think that’s true. Are you a collector? I have a couple of little things that are dear to me, my grandfather’s pipe for example. I could walk out of the house today and if I had my wife and my kids, the rest wouldn’t matter. What was your best investment decision? I bought a house in Dublin in 1995 and in 2000, when I sold it, its value had gone up five times. I was fortunate because if I’d waited another five or six years I’d have got half the original value because of the Irish housing crash. And your biggest mistake? Probably buying a house in Auckland which had the wrong kind of construction. It wasn’t leaky at all but the market went off plaster for a few years. We got our money back rather than gained. Are you a spender? It’s not a key priority, no. I have two children in private schools and I own a race car. So between us we find ways of disposing of cash quite easily. I enjoy New Zealand’s good things, I love eating out. I love getting away. Are you in Kiwisaver? No, it’s only because I’ve always had pension arrangements. I actually ran four pension funds in the UK before I came here so all of my money is in them. But in terms of Kiwisaver, I was aghast when I came to New Zealand actually at the really low financial provision for people’s retirements. I think Kiwisaver’s a good idea. I’m a little annoyed it’s not entirely compulsory. Do you trust money men? I trust a small percentage. I distrusted the guys who were flogging guaranteed debenture before the GFC.