Brash Australian Leaves Indelible Mark Down Under

PERTH, Australia â€”  Corporate raider Robert Holmes a Court, who on Friday finally succumbed to fallout from the October stock market crash, combined the manners of an aristocrat with the doggedness of the self-made man.

The South African-born Holmes a Court, who sold out most of his corporate empire to arch-rival Alan Bond and the Western Australia State Government Insurance Commission, left an indelible mark on Australian business life.

Holmes a Court, who went from an investor in a bankrupt woolen mill to Australia’s richest man in only 16 years, was reported as saying he had tired of the spotlight. At the age of 50, the urbane equestrian and art lover simply wanted to retire to his thoroughbred stud farm.

The suave billionaire’s ruthless attempts to take over Australia’s largest company, Broken Hill Proprietary Co., were once likened by a financial commentator to an ant going after an elephant. His style was to take over companies by nibbling a bite at a time. “In the end, the ant eats the elephant,� the commentator warned BHP.

But his Bell Group and Bell Resources lost more than $750 million in the crash and it cost them his prime target--control of BHP.

Holmes a Court built his empire--estimated before the crash to be worth $1.05 billion--from nothing.

Four successive bids over five years netted him 30% of BHP and the admiration of thousands of small investors who had ridden to riches on the back of the Holmes a Court juggernaut. But when the crash came, he was caught in debt and forced to compromise.

The crash, which hit Australian share markets more heavily than most overseas markets, slashed his corporate wealth by some $690 million and forced him to sell property and shares to meet payments on his large debt.

He sold billions of dollars in other assets to lighten the load on Bell Group and its 43%-owned associate Bell Resources.

Once dubbed “the Great Acquirer,� Holmes a Court became “the Great Divester,� selling assets to pay for his forays on company share registers around the world.

Bell companies had to rid themselves of stakes in such companies as Texaco and Britain’s Sears retail group.

Michael Robert Hamilton Holmes a Court was born in South Africa on July 27, 1937, of British parents. His family background traced back to English landed gentry.

He went to boarding school in Natal, studied agricultural science at New Zealand’s Massey University and moved to Perth in 1962 to study law at the University of Western Australia.

In 1965, he married an Australian, Janet Lee Ranford. They have three sons and a daughter.

Holmes a Court laid the foundations of his empire from his base in Perth in 1970 as legal adviser to a small and ailing company.