Myers’ background

Press, 18 November 1981, Page 27

Myers’ background

PA Auckland Ever since he left Cambridge University (BA, history) Mr Douglas Myers has immersed himself in the hotel and liquor industry. The man who this week spent about $29 million buying shares in Lion Breweries, Ltd, is regarded as one of Auckland’s, sharpest businessmen. His business acumen, his ability to sum up people quickly and correctly, and liis < bluntness and straight talk is admired by those in the liauor industry. .

When he became managing director of the hotel company, Campbell and Ehrenfried, at the age of 31 (he’s 42-years-old now), Mr Myers. said: “We’re getting much younger-thinking, progressive guys coming into the industry. “We look at a person, at what he can do, or what he says he can do, rather than what he was." After Kings College, Mr Myers went to Camnridge (King’s College) then spent two years with Atbed Breweries in Britain. He did

a hotel administration course in Hawaii and worked five months for a chain of Honolulu restaurants. In 1969 he took a four-month management course at Harvard. Back in Auckland after becoming head of Campbell and Ehrenfried, he said: “If we (the liquor people) can’t do a better job than the mum-and-dad-owned motels we should get out of the accommodation business." Within a year he had done just that, in a merger deal with New Zealand Breweries. From the merger New Zealand Wmes and Spirits, Ltd, was formed and in June this year it was sold to Lion. Mr Myers enjoys ski-ing in Colorado, diving in Tahiti, and farming on a sheep and cattle-breeding property in the Bay of Islands. He married in 1971. As managing director of C. and E., Mr ’ Myers made a remark that'was especially relevant this week. He said: “We’re an old family company but one, 1 hope, which can show it is still dynamic. . “My generation's role should be to prove we can do something with the money invested. Unless you can do better each generation you’re going backwards. “If you can’t do well with the assets entrusted you, the money is better off elsewhere.” Last year, ; Mr Myers summed up the decade with New Zealand Wines and Spirits this way: “We have tried to think .strategically — not a very strong New Zealand trait. “Now we’re trying to turn our eyes off-shore to give growth and, given the social sensitivity about liquor in this country, to show the public that the liquor industry can be a responsible, corporate citizen.” The Myers and their two daughters live in Kohimarama. Away from business, Mr Myers’ lite is mostly taken up with family life, his family spending a lot of time with Sir Kenneth and Lady Myers.