It’s no surprise that Tony and Christina Quinn are jointly listed on the Rich List – you could only imagine that the years of moving to new places and starting new business would have forged an extremely close relationship inside and outside the business.
“We love what we do so there’s no separation; we don’t leave the business when we go home,” Christina told Gold Coast Business News last year.
“I have always had complete faith in Tony. It has been an exciting journey – there’s never a dull moment.
“When we first started I worked in sales, administration, everything. I slowly moved out of it as we grew and now look after all of Tony’s appointments and try to bring some organisation into his life.”
The couple’s four adult children also work in the business, with son Klark set to run the Darrell Lea business, which won’t be an easy task given its problems.
Of course, working with family is always fraught with danger – personality clashes between parents and children have brought more than a few great businesses unstuck. And so it was when Tony Quinn worked with his father in Scotland in the family’s pet food business – the two clashed to the point where Quinn’s father challenged him to turn a profit from the offal and bone by-products.
Quinn pulled it off – but the taste of responsibility also gave Quinn the impetus to strike out on his own.
The idea of the pampered pet seems very normal today, but when the Quinns started the business on the Gold Coast in 1994 there wouldn’t have been many pets getting chilled meat.
But with Australians spending as much as $2.8 billion a year on pet food – including increasingly gourmet options – Quinn’s decision has been a smart one.
This is a seriously big business, with eight factories around Australia, 600 staff, a large export business and annual turnover above $300 million. It’s an operation that sounds complex, but Quinn says his focus is on simplicity, a lesson he learned when he made his first big deal in Australia – selling his $600-a-week mowing business – Lawn Ranger – for $18,000 in the early 1980s.
“I cannot see past the simple way of doing things. When I have a board meeting, they know not to talk about history, what happened a month or two ago. I’m only interested in what’s ahead,” Quinn told the Gold Coast Business News.
“There are moments of tears and of joy for anyone who has gone down this path. If it gets too complex, I always think about the ‘Lawn Ranger’.”
Quinn had a big simplification job when VIP bought rival Bush’s International for $75 million in 2009. The business was losing $400,000 a week and Quinn and his family had to act fast.
“There was unbelievable waste in the company. There were eight accountants and 12 sales people. I thought, ‘how can so many people get it so wrong for so long?’ Now there’s one accountant and four sales people.”
Racing cars, a chocolate business, a dream to one day sell ice cream – it’s clear that Tony Quinn knows how to enjoy the spoils of a pretty impressive business career.
James Thomson is a former editor of BRW’s Rich 200 and the publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany.
James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
