eKourier April 2013 -

Kennards Self Storage just a few years later, in 1995, and Nev moved to the United States to give him space (Sam says he was a control freak and he knew it). Then in 1998, Sam bought 24 per cent of the business through a salary sacrifice loan arrangement with his father, and when Neville died last year he and his two brothers, Walter and Jim, who aren’t in the business, shared a third each of Neville’s 76 per cent. So Sam now owns just under 50 per cent. Since 1995, Sam Kennard has acceler- ated the growth of the business and now has 74 storage properties, opening about two new ones a year. It’s actually a real estate business, since they own all of the properties, combined with customer service. He’s 43 now and still managing director, and has three daughters of his own. The oldest is eight. Meanwhile, over at Kennards Hire, Andy took a different route. Three years after the split he bought the Australian operations of the British business, GKN Hire, and with it came its talented Managing Director, Peter Lancken. So Andy, still just in his early 50s, made him Managing Director of the whole company

and stepped back to become chairman, while retaining 100 per cent ownership. Lancken saw an opportunity to consoli- date the equipment hire business across Australia and expanded the business aggressively, taking it from 30 locations to 140 today. He finished up as MD in 2009 and today the company is run by another non-Kennard, Alan Besling. Both Neville and Andy believed strongly in having an independent Board, although Andy perhaps went a bit further than his brother. In 2007 he left the Board entirely, so that two of his children Angus and Kirsty are the two family representatives on the board, with two independents (Peter Lancken is now chairman). Sam’s board consists of himself, his finance director, HK Tung, and two outsiders, Melinda Snowden and David vanAanholt. Each of the branches has a Family Constitution that lays down future succession arrangements, including a right of first refusal over each family member’s shareholding in the event they want/need to sell.

Heart2Heart And these days Andy Kennard is President of Family Business Australia, the associa- tion that represents family businesses, with the aim of passing on to others what he has learnt from successfully organising his own business. Both Andy and Sam Kennard say the aim is to keep each of the businesses in family hands for posterity – that they are mere custodians of the business for future generations. Andy has four children and Sam has three, and there’s no doubt that all seven have been brought up in a strong culture of family business.

Heart2heartSydney are a not for profit organisation with a goal to provide Fijian Schools with quality donated books that will essentially help them to improve their English, reading and writing skills. In August 2012 they completed the Viwa Island District Schools Project shipping 400 kgs of donated books. Their next project was assisting up to 20 Fiji Schools and making a real difference to around 2,000 Fijian school children. The books were shipped by two mothers with the support of the Fiji Ministry of Education. Kennards Brookvale supplied donated space for all the books to be stored until such time as they were then shipped to Fiji. There was special mention of Brad Hampson Assistant Manager at Brookvale for his tireless effort helping to move the pallets of donated books into storage on their arrival at the Centre.

Sharon Dux EA to the MD

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Kennards Kourier April 2013