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Grant Farris sold his business Broadsword for $75.5 million just seven years after he started up the marine contracting company in DarwinPicture: DANIEL HARTLEY-ALLEN

Full steam ahead formarine entrepreneur

By ALISON BEVEGE

You just have to keepworking hard and therewardswill come

A DARWIN man has turned a boatborrowed from a mate into$75.5 million in just seven years.

Grant Farris, 48, of Knuckey La-goon, built up a fleet of 30 vesselswith 200 crew members and 21 sup-porting office staff at his Fisher-mans Wharf-based business Broad-sword Marine Contractors.

It was his first small businessand he never took a single manage-ment course, he said.

And now national employmentservices firm Skilled Group hasbought the firm.

‘‘I’m staying on as the managingdirector to keep the business grow-ing,’’ he said.

Mr Farris was just a humble wor-ker operating crewboats, tugs andconstruction vessels for TheissMarine at the ConocoPhilips Wick-ham Point gas plant in 2006 whenhe saw an opportunity.

‘‘They wanted a crew boat,’’ he

said. ‘‘I had a friend in WesternAustralia with a crew boat.

‘‘We got it to Darwin and got a12-month contract.’’

The boat was an aluminium cata-maran that seated up to 40 passen-gers and could zip along at 20 knots.

The vessel’s name was Broad-

sword, after which Mr Farrisnamed the company.

Six months later they got asecond big contract for Inpex —ferrying scientists out to theMarret Islands off Western Austra-lia back before Darwin won theIchthys project.

The company grew rapidly, andeven when the ConocoPhilips con-tract ended the phone rang off thehook from other industries lookingfor different vessels — from oil andgas to the Australian FisheriesManagement Authority, DefenceDepartment, and researchers look-ing for vessels.

The company now covers theNorthern Territory, Western Aust-ralia and Queensland.

‘It grew fast but it was just a mat-ter of finding a good team,’’ he said.‘‘I slowly built a good teamaround me. I’ve never done a man-agement course in my life, it’sall self-taught.’’

The hardest challenge was keep-ing up with the back office workand the rules and regulations.

‘‘Finding people to employ to ad-minister that side was a challengein Darwin,’’ he said.

‘‘I just kept looking locally,though I have brought some peoplein from down south.’’

Mr Farris said he found the rightstaff through word of mouth andtalking to people.

He said the secret to small busi-ness success was hard work.

‘‘You just have to keep workinghard and the rewards will come,’’Mr Farris said.

‘‘And focus on the client. The jobis all about the client/customer.’’

Skilled Group have paid an in-itial consideration of $48.8 millionto be followed by a $26.7 millionpayment over three years, totalling$75.5 million.

The handover took place lastWednesday.

The company will complementSkilled’s marine logistics business,Offshore Marine Services.

It is not known how much of thesale price might be used to paydown debt and how much is forMr Farris to keep.

But when asked what he woulddo after the big sale, Mr Farris saidhe would ‘‘just keep working’’.

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ONTHEMONEYGABBYHAJJEconomistMacquarieResearch

The longer it takes toget toanelection, the longerbusinessesaremore likely to sit on thesidelines in termsofhiringandinvestment intentions

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