Posted originally on LinkedIn, 30 October 2023

It is with some sadness I see the collapse of Supie, the online supermarket, in the media this afternoon. I had never used Supie, and was not an investor, so my  interest was that of someone who invests in startups and early stage companies plus associated funds.

It’s my hope that the folks at Supie have a good support crew around them, especially founder Sarah Balle. Losing a company that you have put your heart and soul into, and to have it covered across the media, will only add to their sense of pain and grief. They will feel responsible to their staff who have been left out of pocket, their investors who have seen their capital go to zeros, and their most loyal customers. Supie were brash and joyful, they celebrated their early successes very publicly, and were not shy of the media. In this sense, they will now have to endure the flip side of fame as its failure becomes covered widely.

Early comments have said Supie found it too tough to operate against the big two supermarket operators without legislative changes. But they chose to operate in this environment anyway, and raised money to try and win even though they knew the cards were stacked against them. Other thoughts might include that they simply didn’t raise enough cash for the task ahead, or that the business model was simply not strong enough to be online only.

I did not like reading that Supie ended with $3m in debt, with a large number of unpaid staff members, and that the likely outcome is not just administration but liquidation and little left over for staff who needed their pay. It may trigger questions by the administrator and authorities over whether the company was trading while insolvent, and whether directors of the company have more questions to answer about the company's governance.

That’s why it’s also my hope we have learned more about how to behave towards young and bright founders when a startup collapses.

I say it’s my hope, because I was an unfortunate witness to the public and media lynching of young company founder Jake Millar, whose Unfiltered Media company cratered in the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic. Certain media wolves with axes to grind and some self-interest descended upon that vulnerable young man, hounding him across continents. One tech commentator stated on LinkedIn that he had lined up his next column in the Herald to have a go at Jake and the “fatcats and douchebags” who backed young Jake and his team. That column was nixed by the NZME CEO Michael Boggs and his Herald Editor Shayne Currie after I went directly to them, pleading for them to stop the harassing of a vulnerable young man.

To their eternal credit, those two gentlemen saw that the promised opinion piece went way too far, and did not deserve to be in the Herald. Unfortunately for Jake, other media didn’t show the same care or integrity. Jake killed himself several months later in East Africa, far away from his friends and support networks.

This is where I will now choose my words with both sincerity and care. It turns out that one of the directors of Supie who resigned on Friday last week when the Supie administration was imminent, was the tech commentator I refer to above.

There will be much debate and commentary over Supie, the environment it operated in, its management, governance and vision. There may be tough questions and even investigations into how the company ended up failing and affecting so many staff.  But I hope we’ve learned enough about the impact of media lashings and online pile-ons for failed startups and their founders that we are measured and empathetic. The sun will still come up tomorrow, and good people always deserve a second chance.
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Those who tried to build Supie deserve this from us, just as Jake Millar deserved it two years ago.

It is with deep sorrow the Bhatnagar family announces the passing of family patriarch Sir Rajeshwar Sarup Bhatnagar KNZM (Sir Roger) on Monday 7th November 2022, at Summerset at Heritage Park in Ellerslie, Auckland. The family is at peace knowing he is now able to rest after a long period of stroke-related illnesses and incapacity. 

Sir Roger immigrated to New Zealand with his NZ born wife and Canadian born children from Vancouver in 1980, and started a successful electronics retail business called Sound Plus.  In 1991, he bought Noel Leeming from its receivers. As Executive Chairman, he worked with his team to grow Noel Leeming, and helped create the Pacific Retail group, which he exited from in 1999 for semi-retirement. He was awarded a Knighthood by the NZ Government in the Queens Birthday Honours of 1998 for services to business and the community.

He is survived by his son Aaron and daughter Anita, his daughter-in-law Mara and son-in-law Blair, grandchildren Sebastian, Alexander, Christopher, Jack, Brontë and Gia, and his former wife Dee.

Said son Aaron, “Dad had a rich and diverse life, as he was able to savour the fruits of his success in retail and elsewhere. He grew up in very modest circumstances in New Delhi and when travelling the world in the late 1960s, he occasionally slept rough as he was short of money.  He then became established in Canada, learning the art of electronics retail in British Columbia. When he moved with his family to New Zealand in 1980, he irritated many of his competitors with aggressive discounting and marketing, like his “Pyjama Parties” on Auckland’s Queen Street, living by the retail motto ‘stack ‘em high and kiss ‘em goodbye’. He grew Sound Plus from one to nine stores, and then bought Noel Leeming from the Smith’s City receivers in 1991 in a leveraged buyout, and listed Noel Leeming successfully on the NZX in 1993.”

“Dad was incredibly generous to family, friends and causes, but with a mercurial personality that was as tough as it was charming. He loved the nice things in life, enjoyed his friendships with NZ sports players and politicians, and was a charismatic larger than life character. He loved his parties and entertaining, his snapper fishing in the Hauraki Gulf, and had a passion for luxury cars, watches and collectables. Sadly, Dad’s poor health from 2009 onwards deprived him of a more meaningful and rewarding role as an active grandfather, which he was very much looking forward to,” said Aaron.

Long time friend and business confidante Gary Paykel, former CEO of Fisher and Paykel, said “Sir Roger Bhatnagar became a wonderful and true friend of mine. He was the epitome of the entrepreneurial businessman. I watched with admiration his leveraged buyout of Noel Leeming in 1991 - a gutsy move when the company was in receivership. He had rare intuitive instincts for appliance retailing, and I had no doubt he would be successful with Noel Leeming, which he grew into Pacific Retail Group. I will remember him for his openness, honesty and loyalty.”

Another long time close friend, the Rt Hon Winston Peters said “Sir Roger was a stand-out immigrant success story for New Zealand.  I knew Sir Roger for a long time and deeply respected his business career, his contribution to philanthropic causes such as cancer and diabetes charities, and his support for the sporting community. He was enormous fun to be with, had tremendous insight into the retail economy, and it was a privilege to include him on official business delegations to Asia when I was Deputy Prime Minister in the 1990s.”
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The Bhatnagar family are grateful to staff of the Care Centre at Summerset at Heritage Park, and 7 St Vincent in Remuera for their care and support of Sir Roger over 13 years. They also wish to thank his old friend Colin Wong, for his extra caregiving support, as well as family advisors Alex Houghton, Tim Williams and Greg Horton who worked closely with Aaron to ensure Sir Roger’s protection and comfort in his last years.

A private funeral service will be held for family members and close friends.

All correspondence to Aaron via www.bhatnagar.co.nz or  "The Bhatnagar Family" C/- PO Box 37016,  Parnell 1151, Auckland.

In early March 2022, we were contacted by a member of the public asking if the website "www alliance equities dot ltd", (remove all spaces and replace word dot with the symbol dot) was a part of the Bhatnagar family networks.

It is not, and that website represents a fraudulent use of our NZ Companies Office details and registered address. It is highly likely an attempt at fraud on those who give them their money or crypto wallet credentials. 

Our Alliance Equities Ltd has never been involved in any form of cryptocurrency.

Those who are visiting the website in question need to understand that they are at risk of fraud and should not engage further with that website. 

Anyone who believes that they are at risk of financial loss should contact the Official Cybercrime agency for their country. 

CERT NZ
Australian Cybersecurity Centre
FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center
Indian Cybercrime Reporting Centre
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See here for more information on the real Alliance Equities Limited of New Zealand website.

I have also posted a warning on Linkedin.

I recently attended the memorial service for Jake Millar, the founder of Unfiltered, who took his own life in November 2021. 

I was not just an investor in Unfiltered, but someone who was also a friend of his. The day after his memorial service,  I shared a number of thoughts about Jake and his untimely passing on LinkedIn. (click through)

Rest In Peace Jake. 

I like Sharesies. If it encourages people to get involved in investing, it can only be a good thing. But lately, I've seen a few people on the Sharesies Facebook forum make comments like "Why have my shares gone down????? 😞😞😞", as if it was somehow wrong or inexplicable.

As a more seasoned investor, I thought I would help the forum with some thoughts.

I've had the pleasure of being an active share investor for a number of years now, and I thought I'd add some food for thought for some Sharesies investors here, as I've noticed a few have been worried whenever there is a "down day", asking questions like "why are my shares going down?".

Last Friday, I concluded the greatest journey of my life - my investment journey in Pushpay. Over the course of last week, I exited the last of my stake with the share price at record highs, on the back of a superb annual result. 

Our family invested in Pushpay in March 2014, not long after Peter and Chris Huljich made their first investment in late 2013. I recall meeting Chris Heaslip and Elliot Crowther at their Glenfield offices in February 2014 - threadbare carpets, lack of space and tired surrounds, and found myself instantly liking them and their pitch. They had clarity about the problem they solved, and size and scope of the opportunity ahead of them. 

Our family made our first investment shortly after that meeting, and followed up with heavy participation in subsequent raises, becoming Pushpay’s biggest non-insider investor.

This is a post I’ve been looking forward to for a few months now.

Auckland has been great to the Bhatnagar family since we arrived from Canada in 1980.

We’ve prospered in business over two generations, been heavily involved in both political and social circles, and now we are the happy position of giving back to great causes with philanthropy.

On December 11 1997, Mara and I had our first date at the Auckland Art Gallery.

We continued the tradition of art gallery visits, and on December 11 2004, Mara and I hosted our wedding reception in what is now the old wing of the Auckland Art Gallery.

As an Auckland City Councillor between 2007-2010, I was a strong supporter of the Auckland Art Gallery’s modernising and enlarging.
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Which brings us to today: December 11, 2019.

Today, Mara and I are celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary by announcing our joining the Auckland Art Gallery Foundation as “Governors”. We have committed to a substantial philanthropic contribution to the Gallery, and have also joined our three boys up as “members”, perhaps in the hope that the Art Gallery might make a nice place for them to hang out with girlfriends in future years. Our names have gone up on the wall in great company with other generous Aucklanders.

While we love to give to Auckland related causes, the Auckland Art Gallery is an especially sentimental choice for us given its strong connection to the starting of our own family, and our own interests in collecting art.
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If you haven’t been to Te Toi O Tamaki lately, get there - you will love this jewel in Auckland’s crown. The current Colin McCahon exhibition "A Place to Paint" (curated by Ron Brownson) runs to the 20th of January next year, and is unmissable for Aucklanders.

Recently, I've been asked a number of times about what books I'm reading or podcasts I'm listening to. I have typed them up and published them online here, but thought it might be useful to also reference them as a blog post as well.

My favourite books are mostly about business, and most viewed through the prism of "value investing", or buying assets cheaper than their intrinsic worth. Value investing was "invented" by Dr Benjamin Graham, a noted investor but also famous for being the Professor of the University of Columbia's School of Business that taught Warren Buffett. Others on the list are about behaviour - optimising the size of the investment for risk, contrarian investing (also put as "zigging while others zag"), as well as more recent metrics focused books.

Here they are:

Books (all links go the book's page on Amazon.com)

• The Intelligent Investor - Ben Graham. Dr Benjamin Graham is known as the father of "Value Investing", and is also famous for being Warren Buffett's professor at the University of Columbia's School of Business
• The Dhandho Investor - Monish Pabrai. Pabrai is a Warren Buffett disciple who writes about the Kelly Criterion - how big the bet should be when investing.
• One up on Wall Street - Peter Lynch. I found this a very good common-sense approach to investing by the man who led the significant outperformance of the Fidelity Magellan funds in the 1970s and 1980s.
• The Zulu Principle - Jim Slater. This book is about becoming a specialist in a certain area, and homing in on that area of expertise.
• Tap Dancing to Work - Warren Buffett. There are many great books about Warren Buffett, but this one is one of the best, unsurprisingly, because it is written by a long time friend of Buffett, Carol Loomis.
• The Acquirer’s Multiple - Tobias Carlisle. A great book book that examines the methodology of famous value investors like David Einhorn, Warren Buffett and Carl Icahn.
• Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of crowds - Charles Mackay. Mackay examines various economic bubbles, such as the infamous Tulipmania, various gold rush bubbles and more.
• The Little Book that still beats the markets - Joel Greenblatt. This is an excellent book based on “The Magic Formula", a set of metrics which recommend buying above average companies at a cheap price).

​Podcasts (all links to Apple Podcasts)

• Masters in Business - Barry Ritholtz
• Animal Spirits - Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson
• A16Z - Andreesen Horowitz
• The Meb Faber show - Meb Faber