July 23rd 2009
The $3 million University of Auckland Business School Entrepreneurs’ Challenge has been launched by Prime Minister the Hon John Key, and offers young and promising entrepreneurial companies financial support and mentoring to move ahead.

Funded by a generous endowment from one-time student, London-based international financier Charles Bidwill, the Challenge will assist New Zealand businesses of real promise that have reached a critical stage in their growth and development - and need help in moving to the next level.

Complementing the School’s already extensive entrepreneurial ecosystem within programmes such as student-run entrepreneurial challenge Spark, The ICEHOUSE and The New Zealand Leadership Institute, the Entrepreneurs’ Challenge will offer companies loans of up to $1 million to get them where they want to be.

“This is a unique Challenge, one I believe isn’t matched in Australasia, let alone New Zealand,” Business School Dean Professor Greg Whittred says.

“Based on a Bank of Scotland concept to help small-to-medium (SME) sized businesses in that country, this Challenge will do far more than just help New Zealand’s enterprising and competitive companies to get ahead.

“It will also further support the relationship between the Business School and the business community, and will enhance our brand with SMEs.  This is considered to be a growth fund, rather than a capital fund, and will require its investment committee identifying and working very closely with venture capitalists and banks in a new way.”

Developed over the past five years, the Challenge is the result of cultivating ideas and relationships between the University and potential benefactors, Professor Whittred says.  Vice Chancellor Professor Stuart McCutcheon and former Business School Dean Professor Barry Spicer have played an integral part in the Challenge’s foundation by nurturing the relationship with Mr Bidwill.

The former BCom student, who abandoned his studies in favour of international work experience in Australia, the United States and Britain, is wellknown for his underwriting of New Zealand’s first private radio station – Radio Hauraki – which first broadcast from a ship in the Hauraki Gulf.

He was later involved with some of the country’s best known companies of the 1980s and 1990s – Ceramco, Bendon and Baycorp – and since 1997, has been based in the United Kingdom dealing in foreign exchange and bonds.

For New Zealand to prosper and create an environment in which people can thrive, it needs an enterprising and competitive economy, Mr Bidwill says.

“Our country’s future lies in harnessing the energy of its distinctive cultures and competitive strengths: its breathtaking natural environment and pristine resources, world-leading primary sectors and highly successful creative industries,” he says.

“From the beginning, qualities such as resourcefulness, collaboration and entrepreneurship have helped us to excel as a nation.”

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