Capitalism New Zealand style

Graeme Hart is the richest New Zealander, the 191st richest person in the world. He is the master of leverage buy-out. After leaving school at 16 he worked as a truck driver and panel beater. Later he had a hire company. He used cash flow of well performing companies to fund borrowing. He bought the Government Printer in 1990, at a time when the government was flogging off assets at well below valuation, just to get rid of them for ideological reasons. He was given generous terms. On the strength of this he bought Whitcoulls the following year. He built on these acquisitions, borrowing against them and ultimately selling them at a profit until he built up a vast holding of businesses, buying them cheap, stripping them and then selling them on. Recently he sold Goodman Fielder, a manufacturer of food products. While he owned the company he stripped its assets, reduced expenses, including a 26% reduction in the earnings of the bread delivery drivers. While making a vast fortune for himself, he added nothing to the productivity of these businesses or the productivity of the country. I don't think that Capitalism was meant to be using other people's money to enrich yourself without adding to the total value of the goods produced. See Chalkie's comments in today's DomPost http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/10246153/Billionaires-ethos-more-about-cutting-than-creating