JD, as he was known in the early days, with his phenomenal stamina, attention to detail and forensic due diligence, slowly gave way to the shuffling caricature of “Big Jack”, beer in hand, and treated the crowd to tales of heroic deeds from the past . He loved to quote Winston Churchill’s trite aphorisms. One of his favorites was that ‘A pessimist sees the difficulty; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” Elliott had his share of difficulties over the years.

John Dorman Elliott was born on October 3, 1941 in Melbourne, the eldest of three sons of Frank Elliott, a deeply religious man who began his career as a bank clerk and rose to advertising manager of the ANZ banking group, and his wife, Anita (née Dorman) , whose father had owned successful bakery and crushers throughout Victoria. For most of Elliott’s childhood, the house was a modest, comfortable red-brick bungalow in Kew East, and life revolved around school, church and, as the boys grew up, Australian football.

A severe case of often fatal osteomyelitis in Elliott’s left heel when he was six years old nearly put an end to any future sporting activity. But after nine months in bed, wheelchairs and a leg brace, he made a full recovery. He was educated at Carey Grammar, where he earned his first nickname “Egg”. He was also an emerging leader in the schoolyard. “We used to play games like Hitler…and John would always star,” a friend recalled. The then principal, Stewart Hickman, concerned that the boys were not singing well in the chapel, once said to his teachers, “We have to find the hymns that John Elliott likes best and sing it at the top of his voice, and the whole school will be singing with joy.” sing him.”

Unfortunately for Carey Grammar, vocals didn’t interest Elliott. Football was his passion. He was not fast but used his weight to his advantage and was good at reading the game. It also provided an outlet for his highly competitive spirit. He continued to play for his school as an old boy until he was 38.

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Realizing that university would provide opportunities, Elliot entered his senior year of college and in 1958 won Commonwealth and BHP scholarships to Melbourne University to study commerce.

An above-average student with an astounding ability to cram, in college Elliott revived the defunct Commerce Society. It was also a handy cover for an intensive card school and offered liberal incentives to the faculty football team in the form of free beer.

Those closest to him said his personal loyalty and generosity knew no bounds.

But having to do administrative work for BHP in the distant Newcastle during the summer holidays quickly disappoints. With a third-class honors degree in economics, Elliott began to rethink his career options.

After graduation, he spent two years at BHP billing aircraft parts, but when told he would have to wait until age 30 for a proper executive position, he dropped out to do an MBA. He then joined the American management consultancy McKinsey and Co. in 1966.

In May 1965, Elliott married Lorraine Golder, an academically minded young woman studying to become a teacher. They would have three children: Tom (now a 3AW radio host), Caroline and Edward. Lorraine was a Liberal member of Mooroolbark in the Victorian Legislative Assembly from 1992 to 2002.

McKinsey and Co provided Elliott with access to the Melbourne facility and his first foray into senior level business management. One of his first major successes was turning over the financial fortune of a major retail chain in the United States while seconded to McKinsey’s Chicago offices, but he was homesick, so returned and stayed with McKinsey for another 18 months before deciding to leave. on its own in 1972.

Elliott’s amazing career path over the next 15 years is legendary. It started with a crudely typed list of over 300 possible takeover targets. The goal of the 31-year-old entrepreneur was to find the right publicly traded company, suitable lenders and then take matters into his own hands.

Selling unwanted assets and internal rationalizations would, in theory, pay off the exercise, leaving a tightly run, cashed in business that would continue to grow. He and his management team would take a 5 percent stake in the new company.

After six months of painstaking research, Elliott found his prey – a failing Tasmanian jam manufacturer, Henry Jones IXL, once one of Australia’s top 15 companies.

When Elliott went to South Africa to check the company’s assets there, it was the headquarters’ first visit in 12 years. The clerks still stood behind their desks with quills. But the operation had between $30 million and $50 million in book assets, many of which could be rationalized.

The acquisition was successful and profitable and was soon followed by other acquisitions. The more spectacular were the reverse acquisitions of South Australian pastoral home Elder Smith Goldsborough Mort (rebadged as Elders IXL) and Carlton United Breweries, home of the famed Foster’s brand, which Elliott once described as “angels crying on your tongue.” “. Elliott’s management team, consisting of Bob Cowper (the former test cricketer), Richard Wiesener, Peter Scanlon, Ken Jarrett and Geoff Lord, were dubbed the ‘whizz kids’ by the financial press. One of them remembered the period as the greatest, most sustained adrenaline rush they would have ever known.

The company’s widely used business jet, dubbed the “flying beer can,” became Elliott’s second home.

The deals were now played out in billions of dollars on an international stage. The Elders conglomerate was one of the largest companies in the country, with annual sales of more than $16 billion, with 20,000 employees and interests in ranching, brewing, food processing, commodities trading, resources and finance. The company’s widely used business jet, dubbed the “flying beer can,” became Elliott’s second home. He earned a salary of more than $1 million a year on top of his shareholding.

But he also stood out for the level of his political commitments. In 1986, the day his company spent hundreds of millions to buy a stake in BHP in the biggest corporate play in Australian history, Elliott was in Sydney to deliver two speeches to the Liberal Party. Then came the breakup of his first marriage, the 1987 marriage to Amanda Bayles, and the first million-dollar Foster’s Melbourne Cup.

However, the beer baron, now part of the polo set, was made for drunk driving and initial public suggestions emerged that he may have taken his hands off the wheel at Elders. Others were concerned that Elliott was on fire inside because he wasn’t his own man. Many of those he interacted with in New York and London were business owners. Elliott, still a manager, confided to friends that he sometimes felt like a hillbilly colonial who hadn’t been smart enough to make it on his own.

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In 1989, Elliott and his team tried to remedy this with a so-called management buyout of the Elders group. (Coincidentally, his involvement in civic affairs peaked as chairman of the Melbourne Committee from 1989 to 1993.) It was a complicated venture that would have cost him about $66 million. He technically avoided jail, but one of his former best friends, Ken Jarrett, was jailed for six months because of the affair.

Elliott stubbornly spent millions to free himself, at one point selling his $11 million Toorak home to pay his lawyers’ bills, without telling his wife. He was convinced it was all a political conspiracy.

Then, in 2000, his own extensive farming and milling business went bankrupt after several million dollars worth of rice went missing.

Within a few years he had to borrow money from ‘friends’ to survive. There were rumors of secret European bank accounts. Yet he still shrugged it off in public. He told a television interviewer: “I’ve fought some lawsuits and battles that I didn’t win, although I should have. It cost me about $11 million, and some women cost me about $7 [million]. I am broke.”

Elliott had no contact, a figure of pleasure. Perhaps the greatest humiliation came in 2002 when, after 20 years as chairman of his beloved Carlton Football Club, he was sacked after the club violated salary caps for its players. In a strikingly familiar scenario, the club also teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. Then followed incidents in the club’s bar that Elliott couldn’t remember. Many blamed him for Carlton winning the wooden spoon in 2002.

In a final act of revenge, his name was removed from the club signs on the home ground. Yet, almost until the day he died, Elliott was still able to put on a show. He was a remarkable character, loved and hated in equal measure, one of the great corporate characters of the nation.

John Elliott is survived by his partner, Joanne Hurley; his children Tom, Caroline and Edward from his first marriage; daughter Alexandra from his second marriage; stepdaughter Edwina from Amanda’s previous marriage; and their families.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Algulf.net and Algulf.net does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.

Elliott left someone off his birthday list

JOHN Elliott celebrated his 70th birthday yesterday with a two-day festival but he didn’t get a card from restaurateur Caterina Borsato. Elliott was a no-show at the launch of the Pig’s Arse foodies club at Borsato’s Queen Street restaurant on September 7 and she’s still waiting for an apology. Elliott went overseas on a business trip, the event’s co-star Steve Vizard pulled out and Borsato was left to entertain guests with her delicious Italian pork, called la porchetta. Angela Pippos hosted the night with barrister John O’Brien and the more the wine was served, the less guests noticed Elliott’s absence. Borsato told me: ”During the last conversation I had with John, he said he was planning to invite me to his party.” Well, she wasn’t at the bash pollster Gary Morgan hosted on Sunday night for 100 people and she missed out again at yesterday’s lunch at the Savage Club for 36 people. Only two women were ushered into the male den and they were Elliott’s partner, Joanne Hurley, and Carlton doyenne Jeanne Pratt. Elliott blew out more candles during Sunday lunch with his grandchildren. Borsato may have scared Elliott when she told this column after his no-show: ”Mr Elliott will be squealing when I see him.” Elliott must have squealed at all the presents from his three parties.

Cats take the mickey out of Ricky

RICKY Nixon wasn’t laughing when the ”St Kilda schoolgirl” soap opera cost him his job but love with 27-year-old Tegan Gould has softened his heart. Nixon, 48, thought the Mad Monday impersonation by Cats players Mitch Duncan as himself and Jimmy Bartel as Kim Duthie was funny, tweeting that ”everyone needs to lighten up for gods sake!!” As for Duthie, 18, she’s focusing on becoming a copper, tweeting that her dream was to join Victoria Police. Be afraid, be very afraid. Just as the fake Nixon and Duthie arrived hand-in-hand at the Lord of the Isles in Newtown, the real Nixon paraded hand-in-hand with Gould at Riva’s grand final party in St Kilda on Saturday. Gould, in a low-cut figure-hugging dress, flaunted her assets and stayed close to her man. The lovebirds paraded past a motley crew of party people: Dermott Brereton, Lillian Frank and husband Richard, Alex Fevola, Tottie Goldsmith, Jules Lund and Naomi Robson.

A quite interesting fact about Fry