• Home
• »
• Insight

• Home
• Executive Jobs
• Features
  • Focus
  • Career Couch
  • Radar
  • Water Cooler
  • Insight
  • Podcasts
• Place an executive ad

The sweeping view from Nicholas Bolton's $3 million Melbourne office takes in the city's skyline, including Flinders Street Station and the skyscrapers of Southbank. A self-made millionaire by 20, Bolton bought the entire second floor off the plan a couple of years ago, and planned to turn it into an apartment befitting a generation-Y entrepreneur. "One big, open living space," he says.

The view is dominated by the city's tallest building, Eureka Tower, named in honour of the gold diggers who helped turn Melbourne into a New World metropolis. Note the symbolism. Bolton has been called both saviour and sell-out in the past few months, his good looks and fashionable style a useful distraction from a type of financial acumen that has seen him described by some in the media as the next Robert Holmes a Court.

Bolton's story, and his investment in ailing toll-road builder BrisConnections, has been one of the most remarkable in corporate Australia. The fallout - he was called a "greenmailer" and traitor for his actions - made front-page news, but if it's thrown him, he doesn't show it. "I'm a very relaxed person, and have learnt to deal with stressful situations as a matter of course," he says slowly, in a softly spoken voice. "I think it irritates people that I don't show much stress. I could see that was happening in court at times."

To understand Bolton - a carefully tousled, almost pretty, university drop-out who nearly brought a multibillion-dollar consortium to its knees - you need to go back to November last year, when Bolton, then 26, bought a substantial stake in BrisConnections. The purchase was not without risk. As a result of the collapsed share price, each investment in BrisConnections partly paid share units came with significant further debt. Bolton splashed out $47,000, racking up a $94 million liability. His company, Australian Style Investments, would ultimately end up with $154 million of debt.

After failing to negotiate a refinancing deal, Bolton engaged in a high-stakes game of brinkmanship with some of the biggest players in corporate Australia, including the Macquarie Group and Deutsche Bank.

A Victorian Supreme Court battle over the right to hold a meeting of shareholders to vote on winding up BrisConnections made Bolton a national figure, a modern-day David battling corporate Goliaths. Bolton was hailed a champion of the "mum and dad" investors, with one fan blogging that "Nick Bolton is my hero (and he's good looking, too!)"

But when Bolton sold the voting rights of his share units to Leighton Holdings, which is building the toll road, he thereby stopped any chance of the other shareholders having the numbers to pass a vote.

He then transferred his shares to a friend of his father, resulting in him being called a greenmailer (a term coined to describe corporate raiders who buy into companies and hold them to ransom) and worse.

Apart from the damage to his reputation and some hefty legal fees, which BrisConnections is likely to pay, Bolton has taken on corporate Australia and walked away the victor, although the man himself does not agree. "It's not a win," insists Bolton. "It's an outcome, but it's not a victory and we are not celebrating. This was never the outcome we were seeking."

Bolton grew up in the wealthy bayside Melbourne suburbs of Black Rock, Sandringham and Hampton. He and his older sisters, Georgia and Alexandra, attended exclusive private schools, with Bolton completing years 11 and 12 at Wesley College.

His father, John, owned a successful T-shirt company in the 1980s; his mother, Dayle, worked as an illustrator for Vogue. Friends from that time recall the Boltons moving from Black Rock to a sprawling Sandringham mansion with a new Jaguar in the driveway. "Dayle was always smartly dressed," says one. "The girls were much like her. Nick was just a little boy running around after his sisters."

That world came crashing down during the recession of the early '90s. Like so many businesses at that time, John Bolton had overextended his debt. As interest rates soared towards 20 per cent, the Boltons lost the family company, and then the family home. Nicholas was seven.

"When you lose the family home, when you move out of that and into a rented house, it makes an impression on you," says Bolton. "I can remember Mum and Dad talking. I knew what was happening." The family had to move to rundown, rented accommodation in Hampton. "It was a hard time for a lot of people, and we did it tough as a family for years. I remember Dad not being able to get work and Mum became the main breadwinner."

It helped shape the futures of the three Bolton children. The girls followed in their mother's footsteps into artistic pursuits.

Georgia, now 32, landed roles in some of Australia's better-known dramas, including Blue Heelers. Alexandra, 29, worked as an artist and title designer on Baz Lurhmann's film Moulin Rouge!.

But Bolton, from an early age, was interested in business and finance. At seven, he started his own pretend bank and issued his family with passbooks. While other kids saved up their money for computer games, Bolton followed the sharemarket. He bought his first shares at the age of 15. "I'd scrimp and save and put the money in the shares," he says. "I haven't read a book - a novel - since I left school, but I've probably read 5000 editions of the Financial Review."

Bolton studied economics and mechanical engineering at Melbourne University. "I don't think I completed one unit in engineering, but I did well at economics," he says. At the same time, Bolton made money from an investment in Melbourne IT, which had a monopoly on internet and website domain names in Australia. With deregulation of that market looming, Bolton saw an opportunity.

"I started Bottle Domains at the age of 19 and became a competitor to Melbourne IT." He timed his investment well. By the following year, Bottle was an established player, and Bolton dropped out of uni to run his new business from his St Kilda flat.

He claims to have made his first million before his 21st birthday, but "it's never been about the money," says Bolton. "I live reasonably conservatively; even my clothes are not overtly expensive. I might be wearing a $1000 jacket, but with a $20 pair of shoes. I'm not driven by price in terms of what I acquire."

His major indulgences are his two cars - a Range Rover and a BMW Z3 convertible - and a high turnover of T-shirts in his wardrobe. "They don't have a great life expectancy in my closet," he says. T-shirts, and eating out nearly every night, are about the extent of his expenditure. "Apart from legal fees," he says. "I've amassed a few of those lately. Other than that, I prefer a quiet place to have a drink, [rather] than the club scene. I like movies and led a pretty simple life, until BrisConnections."

His sister Alexandra says Bolton's drive was never about the money. "[Business] was a puzzle for him to figure out. He was an extremely intelligent child, too smart for his own good." In just six months he has become one of the most recognised business figures in the country, even if it is as much for his sharp trousers, long scarves and shaggy hair as for his role in exposing one of the most disastrous company floats in Australian history.

It's a point not lost on Alexandra: "I suppose you could reference one of Nicholas's favourite films, Amelie, which makes the observation: 'The fool looks at a finger that points to the sky.' To so quickly assume my brother sold out, or worse, is to not look past the finger."

"I would never do anything that would prejudice other people," says Bolton. "I may have done things that were driven by my own benefit, but my actions also benefited others. I don't particularly enjoy this whole greenmailer tag. I don't think it reflects my approach, and certainly my personality. I love deals where all parties win, and that's what I saw could happen with BrisConnections."

Indeed, Bolton believes if the directors who dismissed him when he first bought his stake in BrisConnections had "looked past the finger" - ignored his fashion sense and date of birth and listened to him instead - some costly litigation and a bitter vote may have been avoided.

The Latin motto of Bolton's Australian Style Investments group of companies is "Riperio creo et supero", or "To invent, create and conquer", which is in keeping with Bolton's inventive and creative lineage. The group's name was in fact a tribute to the defunct magazine Australian Style, which was part-owned by Lachlan Murdoch. "I loved that magazine and when it went under I tried to buy it, but lost out," says Bolton. "I didn't think I'd ever make any money out of it, but it would have been a labour of love."

A similar sentiment exists for the fashion brand Herringbone - which Bolton tried to buy in partnership with Patrick Keating, the son of former prime minister Paul Keating - when it faced financial trouble. Bolton is a friend of Patrick's sister, Katherine Keating. "Self-interest," Bolton says of the motivation behind that potential buy. "I wanted to guarantee my supply of shirts and suits." Still, Bolton's style is more streetwear than suits. "I'm a great fan of the Ksubi boys," he says. "I wear a bit of that, but it's a bit of a cliche now for an Australian to wear Ksubi."

A lack of suits was one of the few things that bothered him during his lengthy court case.

"I didn't expect the case to go beyond day two," admits Bolton. When it reached day six, I ran out of suit combinations and had to start recycling.

It was a real concern."

In the seven months since his BrisConnections purchase, Bolton's image has been splashed across newspapers and television. A reporter has banged on the door of his sister Georgia's home before 6am; the family dog has been photographed for the papers; a Supreme Court judge has questioned his reliability as a witness, and suggested he "gilded the lily" with his testimony before court.

Bolton has appeared half-naked in the business pages of The Age, courtesy of his Facebook pictures; strangers have quizzed him about BrisConnections at functions, and a fake Nick Bolton has started a Twitter stream, issuing false messages in his name.
And so many pictures of him with his St Kilda flatmate Jessica Burrow, 23, have appeared in the papers that some friends now even think they are an item. "I'm definitely single," says Bolton. "Jess and I share a flat together and are great friends, but we have separate bedrooms."

Amid all this, Bolton says he has only has two concerns - his lack of suits for court and the greenmail tag - and he certainly hasn't minded the attention. Even his employees say the boss is lapping up the media appearances. "Where are you from?" asks one as a photo shoot in Bolton's office begins. I tell him Sunday Life magazine and that Bolton will be on the cover. "Well, we'll be hearing about this all week, then."

During his court trial, Bolton even put a newspaper photo of himself leaving court on his Facebook site. "I did put one up," he concedes. "I don't oppose the media attention, but I don't like it when my family reads something and is worried for me. But I believe the truth will always come out in the end."

When asked to defend himself, Bolton pauses.

He says it was never his intention to do anything underhanded when he bought into BrisConnections; he wanted to organise a refinancing deal to benefit all unit holders, and it was the actions of the board of BrisConnections, and an unwillingness to negotiate with him, that left him with no other option.

"The net result of me buying into BrisConnections is that many hundreds of unit holders were able to sell or transfer their units to me or to others and avoid making those payments, so no one was adversely affected," he says.

That explanation hasn't abated the anger of fellow shareholders. "White knight to dark knight," was how one, Luciano Giangiordano, put it. Former jailbird and Alan Bond adviser Jim Byrnes, who joined the BrisConnections saga late in the game, thundered: "He's not going to get [the $4.5 million], I can promise you that. He's just ruined his corporate life forever... I'd trust Mr Bolton like I'd trust a rabbit with a lettuce leaf."

Alexandra casts a little more light on her sibling.

"It seems you are still yet to grasp what my brother is all about," she wrote in an email. "I don't blame you. I've the benefit of 27 years and, even still, I wonder. To get inside the head of my brother is an impossible feat. He makes you work hard for it, that's how he was brought up. To work hard for what you get.

As it can now possibly be seen that the unit holders will be protected as a result of the pointing finger, I wonder if you should still be asking the same question, or instead the real question: why did Nicholas vote against his own resolutions? The answer is not $4.5 million. To only look at the finger is to miss what it is pointing to."

For the moment, fingers are still pointing to Bolton, rather than to BrisConnections, but one thing is for certain - Jim Byrnes is wrong about the future of Bolton's corporate life. It's only beginning.

Are you the next big thing? Search for big jobs in Business Development