stonishing Growth
pp. 121-122 · Read in the full issue
[?]irpenter Group Companies
stonishing Growth Her World War I
IHE Pacific trading organisation which made the most remark able growth during the PlM’s arter-century lifetime is Messrs.
R. Carpenter & Co. Ltd., of Iney.
Messrs. Burns Philp & Co. Ltd. 1 been established for 30 years en World War I began, and eady was known through the ith Seas; but the WRC concern i only just been formed when it war came, and was still in iddling-clothes when peace was led in 1918. But after that its ogress and expansion were momenal. ’he founder was the late Walter 'penter. His father was one of earliest Burns Philp sea-cap is; and young Walter himself, as outh, was briefly in the BP ser ;. He was only 22 when he began ling on his own account in the irsday Island area in 1899. Then had had some years as a com ’cial manager in Fiji, he fact that war came just as registered his own company, with lodest £l,OOO as nominal capital, ned a tragedy; but, actually, it
gave the tireless WRC the very chance he wanted. One result of the war was that Australia took over the administration of the former German colony of New Guinea; another was an enormous Islands demand for both capital and consumer goods; and yet another was (for a time) a market for copra such as the world hitherto had never known.
Walter Carpenter, always noted for his vision, saw the opportunity.
Aided by two or three old associ ates, by his brothers and his two sons and by some strong Sydney financial interests who trusted his judgment, he carried the WRC flag into the New Guinea area—and never looked back. New Guinea’s new gold industry came to buttress the copra industry; and the WRC men, as traders, planters and trans porters, were in the van of all de velopment.
In the 20 years between the Wars the Co.’s achievements were re markable. It not only established stores and owned and controlled plantations throughout New Guinea —it also expanded into Solomons, Gilbert and Ellice, and Fiji; it entered the shipping business with some wooden ships built in New South Wales, which enterprise it slowly and steadily expanded into an important overseas shipping line; it entered the air transport busi ness with some small planes for goldfields transport, but which in due course grew into a very large
concern, providing air service be tween Sydney and New Guinea; it began processing copra at Pondo, in New Britain—from which small be came bigger and bigger milling establishments at Suva (Fiji) and Rabaul (New Guinea); it established a new Insurance Com pany.
By the end of its second decade it was, next to Burns Philp and Co. Ltd., one of the most important institutions in the Pacific Islands, with a subscribed capital of £775,000. News articles spread through 25 years of the PIM de scribe each step of expansion and progress. (Researchers will find the full story of the Carpenter achieve ment in the 1950 edition of the Pacific Islands Year Book.) Even before World War II came, Sir Waiter (he was knighted in the Thirties) and his Directors were altering the character of the busi ness. Wherever possible, the assets and responsibility for operations were transferred to associated Carpenter companies, registered in
or near the scene of their opera tions; so that, by 1949, the character of the Sydney Company had changed. It now was mainly a holding company and, in September, 1949, half the subscribed capital was returned to shareholders.
After World War 11, Sir Walter Carpenter relinquished most of his activities (although he had a lead ing part in the establishment of copra-crushing mills in Canada) and main responsibility for manage ment and direction was taken over by his sons, Messrs. R. B. and C. H.
Carpenter, who had been his closest associates for 20 years. Sir Walter died in February, 1954, aged 76, and Mr. R. B. Carpenter became head of the Sydney company, with over sight over the operations of numer ous associated organisations.