He has also admitted that he is out of Rebel Sports and now on the lookout, for new investments but could "One day buy back into" the Sports Retailer if the new owners have problems.
Starting life in the NSW bush Gerry Harvey came from a family with money however he admits that his father got little of that money as he was "Scoundrel" who ended up broke resulting in his family struggling each week to survive.
Living in a garage with an extension he left school at 15 only to go back after securing a scholarship. Working in a bank during the day and studying for University at night he very quickly worked out that this was not going to reward him enough. At the time the average wage was $8.00 a week.
He was then offered a job as a door to door salesman. Firstly selling vacuum cleaners and then later TV Sets at which he excelled.
"At the time we got $10.00 for each sale so to earn $100 a week was really big as the average salary was only $8.00 a week. I eventually held the record for the most vacuum cleaners sold, 31. One trick was to offer interest free and when you are buying at $100 and selling at $400 you can do this. Now you know where I got the idea of interest free. I then started selling TV sets which back then was hard". He said.
He then moved into Real Estate for several months but gave this away to start an auction business in Sydney which became his first real success.
"At the time we hired a rock and roll band to play outside the store. This really bought the punters in and to get stock we advertised in the local newspapers and to get stock on credit we offered the sellers a little bit more if we could pay them within 3-4 weeks" he said.
He added "This gave us the capital to grow and from one shop we expanded into several stores. We went public in 1972 and went on became the most successful discount retailer in Australia".
"Then there was the Grace Bro's Walton's era when I called Alan Bond a crook before the world found out he was a crook. I was working for him at the time and got sacked as I should after calling Bond a crook".
Gerry Harvey then went on to build the largest mass market retail chain in Australia but not before admitting that he made some mistakes. One of them he admits was not opening an "OfficeWorks retail operation" he added..
"We looked at doing a similar operation after seeing the Office Depot operations in the USA. Instead we went into Computer Mega stores and this is what turned Harvey Norman into the success it is today".
