KEY POINTS:
Mike Pero seems to do business like he does everything in his life - at 100 miles an hour.
Or should that be 500 miles an hour (or 800km/h for those of you who fret about "air kilometres")? That's the top speed of a Boeing 737-800, and even
in middle age, the pilot in him still hasn't got over the thrill of soaring into the sky with a joystick at his fingertips.
"Anything that's got petrol, makes a noise, or has got speed, appeals to me," he grins.
It's not immediately obvious how this made him so successful as a mortgage broker, but it certainly helps to explain his latest business venture.
Over the past four years, remarkably realistic versions of the Boeing cockpit have begun appearing in shopping centres around New Zealand under the Flight Experience brand, offering the public a chance to take off on their own aeronautical adventure almost anywhere in the world.
Be warned, though - going for a spin in one of these flight simulators is no juvenile joyride. The machines might have originally been built out of No 8 wire and a few bungy cords, but they are now being used to train professional pilots, so you might want a swig of Rescue Remedy before you fasten your seatbelt.
The business, Pero gushes, is going "particularly well". So far, five Flight Experience simulators have been franchised in New Zealand, as well as others in Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia.
The company has also struck its first deal with a flight training school. Ironically, given our Government's refusal to let Dubai Aerospace invest in Auckland Airport, the deal is with Dubai Aerospace's flight academy in Ras al-Khaimah, just an hour from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
The Dubai deal, struck over a year ago but only recently announced, did cause Pero to pinch himself at one point, after he and a colleague flew to the UAE to walk the talk.
"It was so beyond our imagination. We ended up renting a Hummer, driving through the desert to find this place, and people were walking around with machineguns, and here we were talking to them about training devices for Arabian pilots. It seemed almost surreal."
The company has wealthy backers, including Sky TV founder Craig Heatley, whose private investment company, Ocean Partners, bought a 50 per cent stake last year.
Naturally, it plans to take on the world, including Australia, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the United States, and is confident its competitive advantage - a vastly cheaper price than its rivals - will find favour among cost-conscious airlines. After all, is there such a thing as an airline that's not cost-conscious these days?
It is, Pero enthuses, a classic example of good old-fashioned Kiwi ingenuity, in the John Britten tradition.
After his initial - and he admits, absolutely disastrous - foray into the airline industry with Origin Pacific, Pero was determined to "make it back". As it happened, he met three Christchurch men who were keen to build a flight simulator, and who had made a replica of a Boeing 767 in their workshop.
"Even though it was made out of bits of timber and junk, I was quite impressed. So I bought into the company at probably 10 times what it was worth and took a quarter share. The guys were thrilled, and I was thrilled. In brief, we decided to engineer, from the ground upwards, a Boeing 737 simulator."
It was quite an audacious goal. Huge companies such as Boeing were already rather skilled at building simulators, which generally cost around $20 million each.
Naturally, being Kiwis, the lads in Christchurch reckoned they could do it for about $200,000, albeit without some of the fancy full-motion features of their international rivals.
"We just used initially bungy cords and wires and a little bit of Microsoft, and threw something together. We developed it further and further, and then we got some real assistance from both Air New Zealand and Pacific Blue. We copied the Pacific Blue flightdeck, which is the 737-800 model, and we got support from various people - pilots, engineers, airlines - and lo and behold we came out with something that is pretty damn close to a 737-800."
Pero doesn't pretend the Flight Experience version is quite so sophisticated as the multimillion-dollar versions. "It's like comparing a Mini to a Mack truck," he admits.
But he believes there is a big gap in the market for a cut-price model that allows pilots to do their basic training at a fraction of the normal cost. After all, what airline or training organisation would want to spend $1000 an hour when they could spend just $100 an hour to achieve the same outcome?
At present, the simulator is being certified for use for initial training for multicrew pilots, and the company is keen to work with Boeing Simulator Services to offer the next level of training as well.
"I really believe it's a major breakthrough for us ... We currently have a relationship there that has assisted us to get where we are, and we've had great support from a number of suppliers around the world who have been keen to see us develop our products."
In fact, says Pero, putting the simulator together has been like assembling a global jigsaw puzzle. People from all over the world have offered to help.
"It's quite amusing. When we're at an international expo or international symposium, Americans come up to us and say: 'Whoa, where did you develop this, or that?' We reply: 'We got some guys in Sydenham in Christchurch to knock something up in their backyard'."
Boeing, for example, was amazed the company had been able to develop a thrust lever assembly for a fraction of its normal cost.
"We've been able to show the world, as Kiwis have done in the past, that nothing is impossible, which is a credit to our engineers and so on."
Ocean Partners came on board after Flight Experience received an approach from an Australian company, keen to take it over.
"They offered us a huge sum of money to buy into our company and take it global. This particular company had a track record of success in Australia and around the world and we were overwhelmed. We sought some independent advice, and as it turned out Tim Howe was our adviser and he saw it and he said it was worth more, so he flushed out a couple of investors, including Craig Heatley and another partner in South Africa."
Pero admits it hasn't all been easy. "We've had a lot of challenges with technology, but we're just about there."
However, it could do with more capital. The company's biggest fear, he says, is that it will be unable to fulfil the amount of orders it believes it is going to get.
Although its plans to list on the New Zealand Stock Exchange have been put on hold for now, due to the parlous state of the money markets, he still hopes it will eventually be able to go ahead.
It will help, he believes, that in New Zealand aviation enthusiasts outnumber golfers - or so he has been told.
"You find whether you're an airline pilot, or an aviation enthusiast, or just Ma and Pa Kettle, there's something about flying, and that's why so many people over the years have put money into airlines. There's something fascinating about them, and here I am in my late 40s and I'm still fascinated by them. Every time that I'm in a plane and just taking off, I still feel that sensation that I don't get from a lot of other things."
In fact, if Flight Experience does prove to be the success it hopes it will, it will be something of a relief.
Pero is very skilled at self-deprecation, insisting - despite his public image - that he hasn't been "overly successful". This would be irritating in almost anybody else, but in Pero's case, it's not entirely false modesty.
Although he is the first to admit he sold Mike Pero Mortgages at exactly the right time, pocketing $15 million in the process, he has also been upfront about the fact that he lost more than $3 million in Origin Pacific - even though he was well aware of the old adage about the best way to make a small fortune in the airline business (by investing a big fortune - ka-ching).
While he is on the record as noting the sale of half of Flight Experience to Ocean Partners was "a similar size" to the sale of his mortgage business, two other business ventures he had high hopes for have recently foundered.
One was TradeRunner, which seemed - to Pero, at least - to be a no-brainer. The idea behind the company, launched just over a year ago, was to offer a complete collection, listing and sales service for goods bought and sold through Trade Me.
While it got strong support from insurance companies such as IAG, which used the service to flog damaged or recovered items on which claims had already been made, Pero and his partners underestimated how labour-intensive the business would be.
And it is now apparent to him that the Kiwi DIY mentality extends to listing our goods for sale on the net - even if it means driving 50km to pick something up in our own cars.
It came as a surprise to everyone, he says - "including Sam Morgan, myself and everyone that was involved in the beginning" - that it failed.
"If we had a dollar for every person that wanted to be part of it, either a franchise, or to put money into the business, we would have made a million bucks in our first month."
In fact, Pero still believes he could have made it work, but it would have required a lot more energy and investment than he was prepared to give. "We thought it was better just to wind it down, and that's what we've done."
His other venture, Jet Express, has also proved disappointing. He has been hinting for a couple of years now to "watch this space" in airfreight, but it seems his rivals can finally relax.
Pero had high hopes of picking up some lucrative contracts in the airfreight business, but last month he lost the only one of any note - the transtasman business of Pacific Blue.
Sir Richard Branson's cut-price airline has decided to take the business in-house, as Virgin has done in Australia.
JetEx will continue to provide an airfreight broking business, but it's only small beer compared with what Pero originally had in mind, "and it's a far cry from what I wanted to do with Origin way back". Which was, of course, to build up a thriving passenger and airfreight business right across the country.
Interestingly, Pero once told a journalist the person he most wanted to meet in the whole world was Branson.
Perhaps he was just licking Branson's boots, or perhaps his disappointment at losing the Pacific Blue contract has coloured his memory, but he now seems underwhelmed when recollecting the moment when it finally happened.
They met briefly when Branson was in Christchurch to celebrate Pacific Blue's third anniversary, he recalls.
"I admire the guy and obviously he has a charisma that seduces people. He certainly has a following.
"People certainly don't work for the Virgin Group for the money."
People did once work for life insurance companies for the money, though. Some probably still do.
Pero claims to no longer be so concerned about money. However, he still seems to care about losing the stuff.
He recently pulled out of a deal to invest in a Hilton resort in his father's homeland of Rarotonga, but is reluctant to say too much about it, other than to admit he got cold feet.
"I think what they're doing was a great idea. I don't want to cause any issues for them ... I hope it does well. It's a beautiful setting, but it seems to be almost cursed."
At the age of 48, he is no longer driven to write 10-year plans.
"I certainly know my expectations, and where I want to be over the next one or two years.
"But I don't have any burning desire to make millions and millions of dollars. For me now, it's all about enjoying what I do.
"I don't spend a lot of money. I don't have any goals to grow majorly rich. I'm just quite happy.
"I'm building a home in Christchurch at the moment and I think I'd like to just enjoy the rest of my working life."
So all he's got to worry about then is JetEx, Mike Pero Mortgages, Flight Experience, his property developments in Christchurch and the West Coast, his impending marriage and honeymoon, his motorcycling hobby, V8 racing, and a secret project he's working on with his friend Graham Tully to build personal hovercraft.
The day we meet, he's only had four hours' sleep.
Could the man with the need for speed finally be slowing down?
Somehow I doubt it.
HITS & MISSES
Right time, right business
Mike Pero Mortgages, launched 1991. Sold half the business in 1996, bought it back in 2004, sold it the same year for $15 million.
Failed to fly
Invested in regional airline Origin Pacific in 2004; company collapsed in 2006. Pero out of pocket by more than $3 million.
TradeRunner, service for people buying and selling through TradeMe. Launched about a year ago; since closed down.
Jet Express, airfreight business. Still operating as freight broker, but hasn't lived up to Pero's ambitions.
Jury's out
Flight Experience, flight simulators for recreation and pilot training. Sold half to Ocean Partners last year, in a deal worth close to $15 million.
