SIR DOUGLAS MYERS 1938-2017 Plaudits for business giant
Liquor baron praised for key role in free-market reforms and generosity in funding scholarships
Sir Douglas Myers has been remembered as an innovative business leader and generous philanthropist following his death, aged 78. Best known for his links with Lion Breweries and as a champion of free market reform, he died in a London hospital on Saturday following a battle with cancer.
He was one of New Zealand’s richest men, born into a thirdgeneration brewing family. He also played a key role in shaping economic debate in the 1980s and 1990s leading the lobby group the Business Roundtable.
He is survived by wife Barbara and children Jessica, Laura and Campbell.
He was awarded a CBE in 1991 for his services to business management and was knighted in 2010.
Myers was ranked 10th on the 2016 NBR Rich List with a total worth of $930 million.
Historian and co-author of The Myers, Michael Bassett told the Herald that Myers was a generous, unusual person.
“He was one out of the box,” Bassett said.
“He was one of our early very genuinely international people in business, and a lot of that comes down to his background. He was part Australian, part Costa Rican, part British, and part New Zealander.”
“Myers was a positive force in New Zealand. He was a glass half full man who made a long and significant contribution to sport and intellectual endeavour.
Besides accomplishments in the brewing industry, donated $3m into Auckland University’s Kenneth Myers Arts Centre, created the Sir Douglas Myers Scholarship worth $100,000 a year to study at Cambridge University, and supported Auckland University’s business school.
Chief executive of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce Michael Barnett remembered Myers for his work with the Roundtable.
Barnett said Myers contributed to it becoming a platform trying to influence policy, and some of the things it did created a better picture for New Zealand business.
“Most who knew him would say he sometimes came across as a little gruff, when in fact he was a likeable and thinking person, who was only too willing to help and engage“he said.
National MP Paul Goldsmith — coauthor of The Myers said in an obituary that Myers “embodied the thrusting entrepreneurialism of the last decades of twentieth century New Zealand.”
“He combined his business preeminence with an ingrained enthusiasm for political activism, philanthropy and internationalism to become one of the most influential and interesting figures of his era,” Goldsmith said.
Myers’ father, Sir Kenneth Myers, and grandfather, Sir Arthur Myers, were both very successful brewing magnates. After joining the family liquor firm in 1965, Myers later bought out family members fighting a court case over valuations.
He developed first New Zealand Wines & Spirits, then Lion Breweries. In 1988 it merged with the old Auckland merchant company L.D. Nathan to form Lion Nathan. After the company purchased Alan Bond’s Australian brewing business in 1990 Myers owned 20 per cent of the expanded Lion Nathan.
In 1998 Myers sold his 45 per cent of Lion shareholding to Japanese brewer Kirin and four years later moved to live in London while also continuing to spend time on the family farm at Matauri Bay in Northland.
Friend and former Auckland City Councillor Trevor Rodgers said “it’s a real loss”.
“He did a lot of things for people which they didn’t know about,” Rodgers said.
Rodgers’ own granddaughter was provided with life-saving treatment for a rare kidney disease thanks to Myers.
Former King’s College headmaster and alumni manager at the University of Auckland John Taylor said Myers had a great impact to education.
“He was tremendously generous to New Zealand education,” Taylor said. “He was a major benefactor to the University of Auckland, particularly the business school.”
Lion New Zealand managing director Rory Glass said they received the news with deep sadness.
“He was deeply passionate about Lion and about New Zealand, and he instilled in us a belief that we could take on the world — and we did,” Glass said.
“Today the Lion family raises a Steinlager to Sir Doug. Thank you for your vision, you courage and your passion,” he said.