Helping businesses step out on the global stage

By PAULA OLIVER

Expatriate Kiwi high-flyer Dr David Teece is adamant that he has not sneaked a peek at his company's stock price since arriving in Nelson for a rare holiday.

That cannot be easy, given that the freshly listed Nasdaq company is showing early promise and hovering around a market capitalisation of $725 million.

But Teece, who has carved out a career as a business professor at the University of California at Berkeley since leaving New Zealand 30 years ago, is appreciating some time off.

"I haven't looked once," he told the Business Herald when asked about the stock price. "I'm determined to build a company first and then the stock price flows out of that."

Teece's name may not be familiar in New Zealand but he has a finger in several well-known pies. He is the majority shareholder in rugby jersey maker Canterbury International and chairman of the large Auckland-based private equity investor I-Cap Partners.

He hit the headlines at the Knowledge Wave conference in 2000 when he and Warehouse founder Stephen Tindall agreed to put up $100,000 to set up a network of Kiwi expatriates, known as KEA.

"I was looking for someone else who was willing to put their money where their mouth was," he said of the idea. Tindall was that man.

KEA was designed to help New Zealand businesses step up to the global stage by connecting them with people who could assist them.

Teece said the biggest mistake New Zealand businesses made when they tried to expand internationally was not being sufficiently networked or resourced.

Since its launch KEA had made significant connections to help companies get money out of Silicon Valley and elsewhere.

"There have been numerous instances, not just of putting this person in touch with that person but of people being put in touch with a money source and it [a deal] actually closing. I'm absolutely convinced it will, in the long run, make a huge difference."

Asked why he wanted to help, Teece said it was simple.

He believed that successful business brought prosperity and led to better communities.

His voluntary efforts are not restricted to New Zealand.

"In the States I'm involved in a lot of voluntary activities as well. It's really part of a broader effort to help in enterprise development everywhere. Because I believe in it."

Most of his business time is now taken up with LECG, an economics and law consultancy listed on the Nasdaq.

Described as a rent-a-brain operation, LECG has a list of experts around the world ready to provide studies and advisory services to companies, law firms and Government agencies.

Teece founded the company in 1988 and it went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 1997.

It was acquired by a larger company which Teece said "did not do a successful job, not so much with us but elsewhere in the business".

He spied an opportunity to buy it back and led a group of professionals and private equity funds in the buyback in 2000.

He has maintained a significant shareholding, is chairman, and is comfortable with the latest float.

"The fact that we actually got the IPO [initial public offering] done in what most people consider is a difficult environment is itself worth mention."

When LECG is not keeping him busy, Teece can be found sizing up opportunities in his role as chairman of I-Cap.

I-Cap has tapped into money sources in North America, Europe and the Middle East and is looking to invest cash into promising businesses - only in New Zealand and Australia.

Teece said the amount of capital I-Cap had access to was now "very considerable" and it already had a "significant" amount deployed.

Asked how much, he said: "I think we should be careful about that. But I suspect in a couple of years we'll be the market leader, certainly in terms of those sourcing their money from outside the region."

I-Cap is joint manager of one of the Government's Venture Investment Funds.

Teece's visits home regularly coincide with the board meetings of Canterbury International.

Since buying out Brierley Investments' stake in 1999, Teece has pushed a global strategy.

He has clear ideas about where its future lies and sees huge opportunities in Britain and the Continent - although he said the company would not lose sight of its New Zealand heritage and rugby background.

A refreshed and rested Teece headed back to California with his wife and children yesterday to begin a new year in which LECG will play a big role.

And the stock price is doing okay - it last traded at US$23.11, compared with the issue price of US$17 a share.