Businessman cover story 2006 - 2007 UParkit PDF download
If you cannot read or download the link above here is the text from the press release.
When Phil Jones called his team of 23 employees to a two-day conference in
Hamilton earlier this year, he left most of them wide-eyed and with
jaws agape following his closing address.
With his typically quiet demeanour, Jones told them of his vision to make
them all millionaires within five years.
No exceptions. All they had to do was play their part as they would in
any normal job.
It has been an eventful last few years for the Tokoroa company owner,
with his idea of a fully automated car-parking system being grasped
enthusiastically in every continent of the world. Described as the next
generation in parking solutions, U-Parkit is a new concept in parking
cars in the high-cost real estate of the worlds big cities. The system
not only saves valuable land space, it has also been designed with
convenience, cost-saving, safety and environmental issues in mind.
The third of 10 children, Jones was born in Rotorua of a Welsh father
and Te Arawa mother. The family moved to Tokoroa, New Zealand’s
famous mill town, when he was two years old and it was here
that Jones attended primary and secondary school.
A promising rugby career was cut short by a knee injury in his teens,
so Jones turned his attention to snooker instead, and the pubs and
pool halls became his playing field.
Tokoroa during the 60s and 70s was a booming cosmopolitan town.
There were Finns, Dutch, Italians, Australians and a big Pacific Island
community, Jones recalls.
People came to Tokoroa for the money with the intention of leaving
again. But they met like-minded people and many stayed to
make it their home. It was a tough town. There were fights,
but back then, when a guy got thumped he accepted it and the matter ended there.
Nobody returned armed with weapons to take vengeance. We were a
family, there was a real sense of community and people looked outfor each other.
Jone’s philosophy of community, family and looking out for one another was a big influence in
the formation of U-Parkit’s parent company, Ahu Developments, and the formula seems to be working.
To date, Ahu Developments has achieved more than $NZ25 million in U-Parkit licensee sales around
the world.
The licensees, typically highly successful businessmen, some of them multi-millionaires have
not been reticent about their desire to also be shareholders in Ahu Developments. The calibre
of our licensees is affirmation thatwe are doing things right, says Jones.
At the time of writing, the first offshore sale is being signed and Jone’s management team
has advised that, of 25,000 U-Parkit car-parking cells under negotiation, at least 1000 will be
confirmed sales within six months.
That amounts to a total of $25 million to $30 million in initial sales. I don’t think that includes
South America, Jones adds. That’s showing huge potential.
There are 300 high-rise towers going up on the Panama City skyline, alone.
As recently as December 2005, Jones unveiled a nine-cell prototype
U-Parkit system and demonstrated it for the first time in a Tokoroa
engineering plant. This was the culmination of his waking up at 2am
one night in February 2002, having dreamed of the idea. He sketched
the concept on the kitchen table of his Tokoroa home where he and
wife, Elaine, had raised their three children.
From that point, a trail of evidence has shown Jones’ special talent in
attracting the right people at the right time and getting the best out
of them.
The first person he called on was Bill Colliar, a local engineer and sawmill
manager, as Jones had been until his own departure in 2000.
“I knew if Bill said it could work then we had something,” says Jones.
“When he gave it the thumbs up, we were on our way. Life had been challenging for the
family since Jones decision to leave the security of the sawmill job he held for years but the U-Parkit
concept probably would not have happened without it, he says.
Overnight, he went from living on a healthy salary as the manager of a Carter Holt Harvey (CHH) sawmill, to working for $10 an hour at the local supermarket packing shelves and doing part-time security work.
“The irony was that I had been running a sawmill with over 300 employees, achieving record
production. I could do it in my sleep, but when I applied for something more challenging I was told guys like me didn’t need to look further, I was too valuable where I was. I promised myself, then, never to hold anyone back or speak to anyone in my employ in that manner.
Elaine was the major breadwinner, while I decided, in my late 40s, to go and study. I didn’t concentrate at
school, so I decided it was time to prove I could achieve academically. It was when he was halfway through
studying for law and management degrees that the U-Parkit idea came to him.
“The university studies gave me a thirst for more knowledge. I also think there is a relationship between
stretching the capacity of your mind and thinking of new ideas.
The studying was the catalyst for U-Parkit.” In 2004, Jones graduated with an LLB and a Bachelor
of Management Studies from Waikato University, having completed 43 papers.
It’s been an incredible journey so far, and not one that Jones has taken alone. Former school
buddy, Peter Jeffries, is Ahu Development’s Hamilton-based lawyer, who has written the
international licence contracts and his brother, Don, provides financial services through his Hamilton
accounting practice.
Ephraim Cooper, also fromTokoroa, built his reputation in New Zealand and overseas as
an architect and is now an Ahu divisional director.
“Tokoroa is perceived as a town where blue-collar people stay in their blue collars,
but the reality is that some very successful people have been raised and educated there,” says
Jones.
“Local engineers were crucial to our prototype and they will continue to be important to our
manufacturing for world markets.” Tokoroa has taught Jones many important, lifelong lessons, but the
earlier experience of corporate life has also had a positive impact.
“I don’t think I’ll ever forget what Allan Mayo (another CHH executive) taught me about
building management teams. He taught me that a good degree of humility was necessary, that you
can’t do everything yourself andto not be afraid of people who can do things better than I can. Jones’ intention is to sell 49 per cent of his new company within five years for $500 million, either through a public offering or through private equity. Not an unreasonable sum to those
who know the company’s growth potential more intimately, especially considering the amount
of interest that has already been shown, both by private equity investors and the world share
markets, a number of which have encouraged Jones to list his
company.
In late 2006, one independent valuation of Ahu Developments (’ahuahu’ from Maori to English
translates into ‘peering to the horizon’) was $160 million. A paper valuation, according to
Jones, but he is confident reality is only a few months behind.
What he actually told his staff on that January 2007 afternoon was that he would be transferring 10
per cent of Ahu’s shares to them and needed their help to build the company to a $1 billon value
within five years. He covered a few minor details of how that would be achieved.
But, basically, he’s relying on them. After all, they can do their jobs better than he can.
