Pat (Guang) and Brenda Huo’s PB Technologies found itself in hot water last year when it was fined by the Commerce Commission for selling non-compliant extended warranties on its electronics goods.
Ranked as one of the country’s top 100 businesses with annual turnover in excess of $400 million, PB Technologies operates 11 superstores and retail centres as well as dedicated wholesale, commercial, education, online, and service divisions. It is also the country’s largest PC builder/assembler and IT service centre, with more than 100 engineers among its 600 staff.
But it was forced to pay $77,000 after pleading guilty to 14 charges of selling more than 4000 “PB Care” extended warranties without giving consumers information to enable them to make an informed choice about whether to buy the extended warranty.
General manager Darren Smith said it was just an honest mistake.
“We would never maliciously go against the law, so we obviously didn't know about it,” he told Stuff.
Only a few months later the company was shoulder-tapped to be the only outlet in the country to sell Chinese smartphone manufacturers Xiamoi’s products.
A motherboard repairer in China, Pat Huo left for Australia after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. He started the company from the spare bedroom of a Panmure apartment in 1992. Now it is based out of a 3.4ha head office and distribution centre in Manukau worth $25 million.
2018: $200 million