Michael Robert Hamilton Holmes à Court (27 July 1937 – 2 September 1990) was a South African-born Australian businessman who became Australia's first billionaire. He died suddenly of heart failure in 1990 at the age of 53.
A great-great-grandson of William à Court-Holmes, 2nd Baron Heytesbury, and a grand-nephew of William Frederick Holmes à Court, 3rd Baron Heytesbury, Holmes à Court was one of the world's most feared corporate raiders through the 1980s, having increased his properties single-handedly from virtually nothing to a diversified resources and media group with an estimated value immediately before the 1987 stock market crash of about A$2 billion. Shareholders in the company enjoyed enormous investment growth. Holmes à Court's horse Black Knight won the 1984 Melbourne Cup.
Holmes à Court died intestate, and his estate was to be divided one-third for his widow Janet, and the remainder equally among their four children, who include Peter, Paul and Simon.
Holmes à Court was born on 27 July 1937 in Johannesburg, South Africa, the son of Peter Worsley Holmes à Court and Ethnee Celia, née Cumming. His grandfather was Henry Worsley Holmes à Court, who was a brother of William Holmes à Court, 3rd Baron Heytesbury and Leonard Holmes à Court, 4th Baron Heytesbury. He spent much of his early life in Southern Rhodesia. He was educated at Cordwalles Preparatory School and Michaelhouse School in Natal, South Africa. There he earned money selling his schoolmates photographs he had taken of them, and by driving them home in exchange for their travel allowances.
Holmes à Court studied forestry in New Zealand at the University of Auckland and Massey University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Agricultural Science in 1962. He then moved to Perth, Western Australia, in 1961 to study law at the University of Western Australia, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Laws in 1965. He married science teacher Janet Ranford on 18 May 1966. Holmes à Court was admitted to practise on 17 April 1968. He then worked as a barrister and solicitor. His law practice in Perth was sometimes in partnership with Nicholas Hasluck.
Holmes à Court entered the corporate stage by accident in 1970, when his law firm was asked to act as administrative receiver of a small publicly listed company, Western Australian Worsted & Woollen Mills (later Albany Woollen Mills, also known as AWM or WA Wool). The company was the single largest employer in the regional city of Albany. In what he later described as his most challenging "takeover" — probably because it was his first —, he found a way to invest $500,000 in the ailing business, on the proviso that the Minister for Industry, Charles Court, would persuade the Government of Western Australia to forgive the $500,000 in loans they had made.
The source of funds for his initial investment in WA Wool were never made clear, since the $75,000 deposit for the purchase price of WA Wool shares came from a bank account that he shared with the partners in his law firm at the time, and his partners asked for these funds to be repaid. Nevertheless, since Holmes à Court had no other apparent source of income at the time, a possibility is that his mother Ethnee financed his first foray into business, since she had stood to inherit from her mother Florence, who in turn had stood to inherit from her second husband H.R. Cumming, a wealthy Rhodesian landowner, businessman and colleague of Cecil Rhodes. Cumming had helped raise Ethnee during her childhood on his estate outside Gweru. As an adult and while living in Rhodesia and South Africa, Ethnee had also established and sold both a riding school and a game lodge in Chobe, and eventually sold several properties that she owned as investments giving the funds to Robert to manage on her migration to Australia in 1967.
After acquiring WA Wool, Holmes à Court made it more competitive by reducing production costs, mainly by installing the latest wool milling and weaving machinery. This was acquired on favourable terms from a leading Belgian equipment manufacturer, which was keen to enter the Australian market at that time. He now controlled a company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, and from there he began to gain control of a string of small businesses, including Westate Electrical Industries.
In 1973, Holmes à Court's AWM acquired Bell Brothers, a well-known West Australian transport and contracting group, for $9.6 million, through a reverse takeover. Bell Brothers would ultimately become his flagship company as The Bell Group Limited.
Bell Group acquired media interests including the Albany Advertiser, the Katanning Weekly, the Great Southern Herald, the Collie Mail and radio station 6VA. It also made unsuccessful bids for companies such as Griffin Coal, Greenbushes Tin and Emu Wines. These bids, while unsuccessful, earned significant profits mainly by aggressive defences from owners resulting in inflated share prices held by the bidder.
In 1977, Holmes à Court's brother Simon disappeared in mysterious circumstances in Africa. His abandoned car was found more than 1,000 km from his home and where he was last seen in Botswana. Author Geoff Elliott wrote a book about the disappearance.
In 1979, Bell Group made an unsuccessful bid for Ansett Transport Industries but was defeated by Rupert Murdoch and TNT. However, a profit of $11 million was made by Bell for future bids.
Bell Group made an unsuccessful bid for The Times in 1980, and at the same time initiated a new Perth newspaper, the Western Mail, challenging the Herald & Weekly Times group which owned The West Australian. By the end of 1980, Bell Group had accumulated cash reserves of $100 million.
In 1981, it made a bid for Elders Goldsbrough Mort for $120 million bid and failed, but earned a profit of $16.5 million on the deal.
During 1982, Bell Group took stakes in Rolls-Royce (4%) and Portland Cement and made an unsuccessful bid for The Herald & Weekly Times group. Later that year it acquired TVW Enterprises owners of television stations TVW-7 in Perth and SAS 10 in Adelaide.
Bell Group subsequently purchased ATV Music, owners of The Beatles publishing rights and a few small regional radio stations in Western Australia.
Unsuccessful bids were made for Carlton & United Breweries and Elders IXL but, as usual, Holmes à Court's strategic corporate planning let him walk away with a profit.
Bell Group acted as a white knight in defeating a £1.9 billion hostile bid from Lloyds Bank for its competitor Standard Chartered.