Retired industrialist Richard Izard was for a time the owner of one of New Zealand’s most successful companies.
The 85-year-old pioneered the local manufacture of tungsten carbide-tipped saw-blades for the US market in the 1980s. He employed more than 100 people in three Northland saw-blade factories with 80% of production being exported.
When the company was sold to US-based Irwin International in 1991, it was employing 200 Wellsford people and had a turnover of $50 million.
By 1993 Izard had sold all his interests in the business for such a sum that he and his wife, Patience, sat on a beach in Fiji "in a state of shock about the amount of money we'd come into."
Back in 1978 the couple had been flat broke, trying to sell sheepskin car seat covers in California.
These days the windfall from his company has helped his investment arm, Izard Investments, put money into a handful of valuable properties in downtown Auckland, including a $42 million commercial property on Queen St and another worth $13.5 million in Parnell.
Izard keeps his philanthropy quiet but was a key supporter of Lake Taupo Hospice where he helped fund the purchase of a new site, and the Taupo Motorsport Park, which as a classic car nut, “felt I just had to support.”
2018: $115 million