Henry Newrick founded NBR aged 23, 50 years ago this week.
It was near the beginning of a career steeped in business startups and art and publications, including founding Business Ideas in 1992 and, in 1993, co-founding Pavement, considered New Zealand’s leading ‘alternative’ fashion/music magazine for 17 years.
In 1994, he was headhunted to a Singapore publishing group and then moved to the United Kingdom where he was retained by an American group to advise on capital raising for a Caribbean marine salvage operation – more specifically, Spanish wrecks in the waters of Antigua and Barbuda, among other adventures.
He remains active in several British business interests from his home in Whanganui, where he is also managing director of Heritage Publishing.
We asked him about his thoughts on NBR’s half-century anniversary.
What was the main driver/inspiration for your decision to start a business newspaper in 1970?
I’d been publishing Property News and the Oil and Mineral Bulletin for about two years from 1968, drawing on the Australian Financial Review for some of the material for the Oil and Mineral Bulletin. It then occurred to me that what we lacked in New Zealand was a decent business newspaper and so the idea of launching one took hold.
What was the biggest challenge you faced in establishing this rather unique business at the time?
Pulling the right people together to make it happen. I’d gotten to know Hugh Rennie at university where we’d both worked on student media including Salient. Hugh helped bring the editorial team together, including Barrie Saunders with whom I’d also worked alongside at university. The other real challenge was the lack of proper capitalisation. We operated on the smell of an oily rag but I figured that if/when recapitalisation became necessary, we’d at least have a publication that was proving itself. Getting the necessary capital at the get-go would have been fraught with obstacles, not least of which was that I was just 23 with (at that time) relatively little publishing experience. I doubt whether I would have been taken seriously.
Did you think you would be able to make money from the paper – and how did you intend to do so?
Of course I thought we’d make money from the paper. I was young, recently married and with a child on the way – hence a family to support. We weren’t running a charity. But at the same time, I was (and still am) passionate about publishing and the print media. There were numerous ways to make money, pay for the operating costs and, hopefully, make a profit. These included ad sales (critical), subscriptions, and single-copy sales through the shops. Regular supplements on specific topics such as ‘Office equipment’ or ‘Executive vehicles’ also provided an opportunity for advertisers wanting to be in an issue where the editorial was relevant.
How did you communicate your vision to the team you gathered around you, who were also heading into unchartered territory?
I can’t say that I had any lofty ambition. I think we were all agreed that it would be fun, taking on the then establishment, many of whose members were ‘up themselves’. Brierley was doing it in the corporate sense but the media, owned by establishment figures such as Blundell Bros or the Horton family, did not engage in the sort of investigative journalism that was to become the hallmark of NBR.
How did you know there would be an appetite for this product?
We didn’t. Shortly after launch I was stopped in the street by Hugh Walls, owner of the NZ Economist and Taxpayer, a monthly ‘non-challenging’ sort of publication that tended to publish whatever the PR agencies cared to submit. He said to me: ‘I wish you luck Mr Newrick (he didn’t really!) with your new publication but it can’t possibly succeed.’ ‘Why is that Mr Walls?,’ I replied. He then said ‘Twenty years ago, Jimmy Dunn,* Sir Clifford Plimmer* and I discussed the concept of a business newspaper, did market research and the answer came back that there was no market for a business newspaper.’
I then responded: ‘That was 20 years ago (1950, just after the war). Markets change. I have done no research but my gut feeling tells me that there is a market for a business newspaper and I’m following my instinct.’ His parting remarks were ‘When you are about to go out of business come and see me. We might be interested in buying your mailing list.’
Footnote: six months later we did nearly go out of business. However, the publication was now up and running but needing additional capital. Ten years later, under a new company, I bought what was left of his publication, by then known as the New Zealand Financial Review.
* Jimmy Dunn was half-owner of the weekly scandal rag NZ Truth. His best mate was knight of the realm and establishment figure Sir Clifford Plimmer. What very few people realise was that Sir Clifford was also a substantial owner of NZ Truth which, in its heyday, had a circulation of about 250,000 copies a week.
What kinds of stories do you yourself like to read? Favourite writer/ journalist/columnist?
I currently have around 2000+ books. I generally only read only non-fiction when I get time. My main areas of interest are marketing and books about publishing and publishers. I also have a large number of books on art and religion. In 1973, I authored and published New Zealand Art Auction Records, which sold well. I am now writing a sequel (almost 50 years on) which tracks the rise and/or fall of NZ art prices over the past 50 years. Practising what I preach, the book will be supported by advertising, which will (a) minimise the publishing risk and (b) enable it to be sold for less than $20 (as opposed to $30 to $35 if there were no supporting ads).
What would you do differently if you were to do it all again today?
It been a helluva ride. I’ve had what can only be described as a pretty unconventional life. I began university studying arts and law. I was hoping to become a diplomat or foreign correspondent. My mum died at a young age. I quit and got into publishing after being rejected by ad agencies. On reflection, I don’t think there is a great deal I would do differently. In the words of the great French chanteuse Edith Piaf: ‘Non, je ne regrette rien’.
Next year I’ll be 75 but I still have lots to do. I plan to open an art gallery, finish my art book, and continue dealing in art (another story). I have an 18-year-old daughter about to start university and a 16-year-old son who is passionate about cooking. I need to keep earning.
What would you say was the legacy you left on NZ media by establishing the NBR?
Until NBR came along, the media tended to be very compliant. PR releases were generally published without question in the belief that they were ‘true’. In neither the mainstream press nor business publications was there any serious investigative journalism. The closest thing to any investigative publication was NZ Truth, which focused mainly on sex scandals and the occasional business story, where somebody had really put a foot wrong and were not part of the establishment. A word with Clifford Plimmer would have kept the high and the mighty out of the paper whether it concerned bedroom romps or dodgy business dealings. With the advent of NBR, began the start of good investigative journalism, which has carried on to this day.
As a final comment, I might add that I was intrigued by Hugh Rennie’s comment towards the end the piece on him this week that read: ‘Rennie says he remembers finding a young keen journalist who had just left the provincial dailies in his office sobbing, and asked him what the problem was.
‘He says: “I have just been down to the Evening Post to ask for a job and they told me I’ll never get one because I am over-qualified”. ’
Following my departure from university at the end of two years in which I’d passed all subjects except one (law of Torts), I tried to get a job in advertising with little success. I recall being told by the interviewer at Charles Haines (a large Wellington agency) that they couldn’t hire me because I was over-qualified to start at the bottom and not qualified enough to start higher up. Rather than sobbing, I thought, ‘bugger this, I’ll go and start my own publishing company’, which I did at 21 with the newsletters and, two years later, NBR.
The question – how would business journalism have developed had I been employed in advertising? Life is full of twists and turns.
