Sun sets on the Bill Day Show
The Wellington entrepreneur is preparing to sell up, learn Italian, and repay his family for the years of financial instability as he chased his dreams
Tuesday, July 06 2010 || Features || BY Keri Welham
The tale of swashbuckling Bill Day is an action-packed adventure set on the high seas, from the wonderland of Antarctica to the searing Middle East.
Over the last 20 years, the Wellington businessman with a colourful vocabulary has dreamt and failed, and dreamt again, as he has hunted for sunken treasure, run bowling alleys, fought fires, and built a multimillion dollar fortune out of his love for scuba diving. He risked it all, stared financial ruin in the face, and bounced back with a vengeance.
But now the star of the show is turning his back on his risk taking ways and doing something wholly sensible. Bill Day is extricating himself from the lead role at Seaworks, and preparing his business for sale.
When Unlimited last profiled Day in early 2001, he was celebrating Seaworks’ remarkable rise. In the previous 18 months, turnover had quadrupled to more than $30 million a year. Seaworks was doing everything from acting as a marine consultant on Stephen Spielberg movies, to providing support vessels on oil exploration projects. But there was a huge new opportunity in Seaworks’ line of business: cable laying. Seaworks landed a multimillion dollar cable laying contract with Telstra Saturn and Day invested heavily in equipment, such as a $26 million boat, to ensure capacity for the job. The heavy investment was a punt — Day hoped he would then be set up to exploit other cable laying opportunities. And then, late in 2001, US energy giant Enron went bankrupt and Day “almost went out the back door”.
When Enron collapsed, so did the worldwide fibre optic cable market. Day was left with huge debt, an expensive plant and not enough work.
He wasn’t able to meet his obligations to the bank, he had to sack good staff, and those who remained took salary cuts.
“We certainly stood on the edge of the abyss and looked in.”
After a few hairy months, unsure if he could even meet his reduced payroll obligations let alone arrest the demise of his business, Day clawed back. In fact, he eventually came back in spectacular fashion — building a bigger, stronger, more diversified business than before.
Seaworks is now worth around $50 million and does everything from running specialised ships fitted with underwater robots in the Middle East, to marine management for all sorts of Hollywood and Kiwi film and television ventures in the South Pacific.
A couple of years ago, Day realised he could write a cheque for whatever amount he wanted and not have to think about it, but the lesson has lingered.
“I won’t commit everything on one thing any more.”
