Green power

Hugh Green has a reputation as one of the shrewdest buyers in the stock market and other investors take note of his timing. Picture / Brett Phibbs

It was a motley line-up at an Irish university to receive the floppy cap of an honorary doctorate - a philosopher, a papal knight, a clinical pharmacologist, an expert in visual postmodernism, an algebraist and a former boy cattle drover.

But even an expert in herding cows can be admitted to the bosom of academia, especially when he has something the others don't - a place, albeit irritatingly for him, on a New Zealand rich list.

Hugh Green, 75, of Auckland, grew up in rugged Donegal believing wealth to be a hot meal and boots that kept water out. He now has wide-ranging business interests in oil and gas exploration in Taranaki and Wanganui.

As a 17-year-old he laboured in Scottish hydro tunnels; these days he's said to be worth $190 million.

The National University of Ireland, on the shores of Galway Bay, has just honoured his lifetime achievements with a doctorate of laws.

As he clasped his scroll, the son of a publican turned cattle dealer was in distinguished company, including the university's president, Dr Iognaid O. Muircheartaigh and former Irish Prime Minister Dr Garret Fitzgerald, who felt the heat of Green's Republican passion while on a lecture tour in Auckland two years ago.

During question time in an Auckland University theatre, a rare mixture of academics and the local Irish community heard Green ask, "Why don't they play the Irish National Anthem when Ireland plays the All Blacks?"

"Because," the politician explained, "the team is selected from across the island, not just the Republic."

Back in a brogue which time has not altered came Green's rejoinder, "It doesn't matter, they should anyway."

Green - his friends had better forget the doctor thing - left school aged 12, semi-literate, to move cows along narrow lanes to cattle marts where sales were made by "dealin' men" with a spit on the hand and a roll of blackmarket money and where you quickly learned to be smart at counting in your head if you wanted to help put food on the table.

When the advent of the lorry reduced work opportunities for drovers, he left home to labour in Britain before the lure of Australia with an assisted passage saw him cutting sugar cane in Queensland in heat he'd never felt before. He disliked it so much it made the cattle fairs of Ireland look good and he vowed that with £1000 in the bank, he would return and buy a new lorry.

Through piece work and long hours, his savings grew beyond that and he headed for home via New Zealand and Canada. He didn't make it past Auckland. He liked what he saw, stayed - and made a fortune.

With another Donegal man, Barney McCahill, he started the contracting company, Green and McCahill, in 1953 which expanded to employ hundreds and helped change the face of New Zealand.

Their work was known from Auckland to Reefton and many Ministry of Works contracts in between. It was said at the time that Green made it rain with contracts; McCahill made sure it poured with results. Their wealth grew and the philosophy was homespun.

"Because of their lack of education back then, the Irish were well-suited to work on construction sites," says Green. "And there was plenty of work to be had. The ones that did worst were the ones with two or three years of secondary education - too educated for building sites but qualified for little else. The Irish did well out of construction all over the world."

He says many construction firms went broke in New Zealand and Australia because they bid too low, desperate for the work. "These days, corruption has crept into the industry in Ireland and politicians seem very close to the people involved. In New Zealand you talk to local government, not national politicians."

In the 1980s, as a hedge against civil engineering risks, the company diversified into property development and the owners went their separate ways a few years ago, both rich-listers.

The Hugh Green Group concentrated on investment, buying farming land and more recently, winning oil and gas exploration permits.

Green has a reputation as one of the shrewdest buyers in the stock market having acquired stakes in Hellaby Holdings, the Dorchester Group and Briscoes with such good timing that other investors watch his buys for signs those companies will soon be showing a recovery. No longer does he seek to employ the navvies of Ireland who, like him, had little alternative but to leave home. A more highly educated generation are now e-mailing their degree-strewn CVs.

A philanthropist, his largesse has been wide-ranging, from sponsoring Auckland's St Patrick's Day street parade, to guide dogs for the blind in Ireland. He has rubbed shoulders at presidential and prime ministerial level but is not one to shoot clasped cuffs from herringbone sleeves.

He makes an annual trip to the Galway races to catch up with old mates.

And he is still working. Recently he has returned to his first love, trading in livestock - half a century after studying it from close quarters and on the start of a tough road to a framed degree for the office wall.