Having spent half his lifetime creating the Sistema Plastics business that was sold for $660 million, Brendan Lindsay got the thrill of a lifetime when his racehorse, Probabeel, won the lucrative 2019 Karaka Millions event for two-year-olds.
The $550,500 winner’s purse was just rewards for Lindsay and his wife Jo who have ploughed millions into the racing game. Standing on the winner’s dais at the Ellerslie racecourse, an ecstatic Lindsay told racegoers “we’ve waited 25 years to win a race like this.”
Flush with cash from the sale of Sistema in 2017, Lindsay bought Cambridge Stud from fellow Rich Lister Sir Patrick Hogan in 2018 for an undisclosed sum and has subsequently invested heavily to remodel the 200 hectare property with new yearling barns, stallion complex, hospitality centre and museum.
With a world-class stallion roster that includes locally bred Tavistock, Embellish and Burgundy – backed by expensive imports Roaring Lion and Azamour – the stud generates tens of millions of dollars annually in service fees. Tavistock alone could fetch gross income upward of $7 million based on his reduced 2019 fee of $50,000.
Cambridge Stud also made a flying start under its new ownership at the 2019 Karaka Yearling sales. Ranked as the second leading seller, with sales of $7.5m for 53 yearlings at an average price of $141,604, the stud also appeared in the top 10 list of buyers, buying seven lots for an outlay of $1.22m.
A keen supporter of Kiwi businesses, the Lindsay Investment Trust pulled the right rein with its initial investment in Methven, netting a $6m profit after selling its 20% stake when the tapware business was taken over in late 2018. Operating from a base in Auckland’s Viaduct Harbour, the trust’s most recent listed company acquisition is a 7% stake in Ronnie Xue’s up-and-coming QEX Logistics company.
Among a myriad of other current investments is the 200ha purpose-built Lindsay Park thoroughbred training facility at Karaka valued at $32m. There is also $30m invested in funds managed by Wellington’s Willis Bond Capital Partners and a pet project in Coast to Coast Queen Bee and honey farm in Waikato.
2019 also saw the launch of the Lindsay Foundation, which is being headed by former ASB Bank relationship manager Andrew Higgott, with a mission to support Kiwi individuals and organisations who aspire to make a positive difference in New Zealand. A member of Philanthropy New Zealand, the foundation has joined the Todd, Tindall and Hugh Green Foundations as funders of the Working Together More Fund and has also become a gold sponsor of Assistance Dogs New Zealand.
In November, Lindsay Investment Trust bought a 12.06% share in NZX listed shell corporation CSM Group for $250,000.
Stating that the Sistema sale was “never about the money” and that “it’s better to surround yourself with people smarter than yourself,” Lindsay shrewdly retained ownership of the company’s $100m Mangere production facility, which has been leased to the American owners for the next 18 years.
Nicknamed “Hanger” in deference to his early exploits making plastic coat hangers, Lindsay was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2012 for services to business and lives in an $18.5m family home in Remuera.
Photo: Stuff
2018: $600 million