Scot With Wide Interests

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31802, 5 October 1968, Page 14

Scot With Wide Interests

An affluent Scot with 8500 employees, Mr H. C. Stenhouse, bounced into his Christchurch office yesterday. Within 10 minutes he was shaking hands with every staff member of his insurance company in Hereford Street, and asking the stenographers their ages. The smiling, ruddy-faced Scot, whose company also owns two high-country properties in the South Island,

“Mount Possession,” and “Hakataramea,” as well as 17 sheep stations in Australia, opened his first New Zealand office seven years ago with one man and an assistant. This has expanded to offices in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland. Mr Stenhouse is chairman of the international Stenhouse group of insurance-broking companies and a director of the New Zealand and Australia Land Company, Ltd. On his present tour he is visiting New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Rhodesia, and France, where his company handles any form of insurance.

Mr Stenhouse has houses in London, Glasgow and Argyllshire. He drinks his Scotch with water. When he drinks it in London it is “all right”; when he drinks it in Glasgow it is “good”; but when he drinks it in Argyllshire, it is the finest in the world. “It is the water running down through the peat bog of Argyllshire, that does it,” he says. Mr Stenhouse employs 2000 persons in the insurance side of his business, and 6000 on the industrial holdings side. The principal manufactur-

ing divisions of the group are electrical, car, furniture, glue, jewellery and stockings. He manufactures wedding rings, pearl necklaces and diamond rings. Mr Stenhouse says his New Zealand companies have done extremely well and all profits have gone back into the business.

Mr Stenhouse says New Zealand is a wonderful place for investment for someone staying permanently.

But if you are here for a “smash and grab”—do not come.