Reclusive rich-lister John Spencer was once NZ's richest man

Friday, 12 February 2016

Many New Zealanders think of John Spencer as the 'toilet paper king' with cliff-top homes and a desire to keep the public out of his property on Waiheke Island.

But one Auckland business leader who knew him says the 81-year-old, who has died in Britain, was interested in Auckland's wellbeing and wanted the city to succeed.

Spencer was the country's richest man through much of the 1980s. He inherited his family's pulp and paper business, Caxton, and sold it to Carter Holt Harvey in 1981 for about $300 million.

He was a committed recluse who fiercely avoided public scrutiny, even directing media inquiries to his lawyers. Neighbours described him as living in an ivory tower.

But he appeared in the news on and off for almost two decades, as he fought to keep Waiheke Island visitors and residents out of the Stony Batter gun emplacement on his farm on the island.

The battle waged for 19 years, a wooden gate and then a metal one with a padlock blocking one part of Loop Rd and mounds of earth and even security guards on other parts, before the Privy Council ruled in 2002 that  the public should be allowed access.

The fight cost Auckland ratepayers $1.5m and was the longest-running legal saga in New Zealand local government history.

Former Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee said of the win: 'John Spencer is an unusual man. He lives in New Zealand but it appears to me that he doesn't really seem to see himself as a part of New Zealand or a member of New Zealand society'.

'The same goes with his attitude to Waiheke Island.

'Clearly there were the years of needless, hugely expensive litigation with the Waiheke County Council and then the Auckland City Council over a public road … behaviour one would expect more from young radical members of an aggrieved iwi with a valid, long standing historic claim.'

Lee did not want to comment when contacted about Spencer's death.

The Spencer family was also revealed in 2010 to be majority owners of a company called TrustNet, whose clients included people who used tax havens to dodge their obligations.

TrustNet was set up by New Zealanders in what was then a newly-established Cook Islands tax haven.

Kim Campbell, chief executive of the Employers and Manufacturers Association, said Spencer had been a force in business around Auckland earlier in his career but his influence had not been felt in recent times as he became more reclusive.

'My sympathies are with his family.'

Campbell said while Spencer's brother, Peter, had played more of a role in New Zealand business, Spencer had primarily invested in real estate, boats and offshore, so had less of an impact.

Spencer spent much of his time in Monaco, where he based his superyacht. 

But Auckland Chamber of Commerce head Michael Barnett said he knew Spencer on a personal level.

'The last time I had anything to do with him we both had boats moored in Man O'War Bay.

'He rowed across and chatted about Auckland things … rowed back to his wine shop and brought a bottle of red wine out to me on my boat. That was three or four years ago.'

Barnett said he knew Spencer as someone who was interested in Auckland and its wellbeing. 'I knew him in a positive way.'

In the business realm, Barnett said he only knew of Spencer what the wider world knew.

'Talk of balance sheets, the results of exports and the Kawerau employment story. Anything from a business perspective mostly came from the media. '

But when it came to negative coverage of Spencer, part of the problem was that only some of the story was told, Barnett said.

'The public generally wasn't informed why he might have taken a certain stand on certain issues. We saw what he did but we deal with stories in their compartments.'

The Spencers had reportedly been suffering theft of farm stock in the years before he tried to close the road.

Barnett said he still had Spencer's bottle of wine on his boat.

'Now I have a reason to drink it.'