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    Laurie Connell of Rothwells

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    Aarthee Sundaram
    Laurie Connell was a Western Australian businessman who established Rothwells Merchant Bank in the 1980s through aggressive business acquisitions. After the 1987 stock market crash, there was a run on Rothwells by investors prompting Connell to seek a $150 million government guarantee from Premier Brian Burke. Despite rescue efforts by incoming Premier Peter Dowding, Rothwells ultimately collapsed causing heavy losses. A royal commission found that Burke's support of Rothwells was partly due to his relationship with Connell and desire to support the Labor Party. It also found Dowding presided over disastrous decisions in attempts to save Rothwells when it was no longer viable. The political fallout dominated discourse in Western Australia and led Premier Carm

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    Laurie Connell of Rothwells

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    Aarthee Sundaram
    614 views9 pages
    Laurie Connell was a Western Australian businessman who established Rothwells Merchant Bank in the 1980s through aggressive business acquisitions. After the 1987 stock market crash, there was a run on Rothwells by investors prompting Connell to seek a $150 million government guarantee from Premier Brian Burke. Despite rescue efforts by incoming Premier Peter Dowding, Rothwells ultimately collapsed causing heavy losses. A royal commission found that Burke's support of Rothwells was partly due to his relationship with Connell and desire to support the Labor Party. It also found Dowding presided over disastrous decisions in attempts to save Rothwells when it was no longer viable. The political fallout dominated discourse in Western Australia and led Premier Carm

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    Laurie Connell was a Western Australian businessman who established Rothwells Merchant Bank in the 1980s through aggressive business acquisitions. After the 1987 stock market crash, there was a run on Rothwells by investors prompting Connell to seek a $150 million government guarantee from Premier Brian Burke. Despite rescue efforts by incoming Premier Peter Dowding, Rothwells ultimately collapsed causing heavy losses. A royal commission found that Burke's support of Rothwells was partly due to his relationship with Connell and desire to support the Labor Party. It also found Dowding presided over disastrous decisions in attempts to save Rothwells when it was no longer viable. The political fallout dominated discourse in Western Australia and led Premier Carm

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    614 views9 pages

    Laurie Connell of Rothwells

    Uploaded by

    Aarthee Sundaram
    Laurie Connell was a Western Australian businessman who established Rothwells Merchant Bank in the 1980s through aggressive business acquisitions. After the 1987 stock market crash, there was a run on Rothwells by investors prompting Connell to seek a $150 million government guarantee from Premier Brian Burke. Despite rescue efforts by incoming Premier Peter Dowding, Rothwells ultimately collapsed causing heavy losses. A royal commission found that Burke's support of Rothwells was partly due to his relationship with Connell and desire to support the Labor Party. It also found Dowding presided over disastrous decisions in attempts to save Rothwells when it was no longer viable. The political fallout dominated discourse in Western Australia and led Premier Carm

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    The passage discusses Laurie Connell, a businessman involved in the WA Inc period in Western Australia during the 1980s. It also discusses the collapse of Rothwells merchant bank and the subsequent royal commission.

    Laurie Connell was a Western Australian businessman who was the chairman of Rothwells merchant bank. He had close relationships with former WA premier Brian Burke and Alan Bond and was involved in numerous business dealings with the WA government during the WA Inc period in the 1980s.

    After the 1987 stock market crash, there was a run on Rothwells by local investors. Despite a government guarantee, Rothwells ultimately went into liquidation, causing heavy losses.

    Laurie Connell of Rothwells

    About Laurie connell


    Lawrence Robert ('Laurie') Connell (1946 - 27 February 1996) was a Western Australian business entrepreneur. He was well known for his dealings with the Government of Western Australia and his close relationships with a former premier of Western Australia, Brian Burke, and Alan Bond during the WA Inc period in the mid to late

    1980s as chairman of the Rothwells merchant bank.


    In 1994, Connell was jailed for conspiring to pervert the course of justice by paying a jockey to leave the country.

    Rothwells
    During the 1980s Connell started acquiring numerous local businesses through aggressive takeovers before setting himself up as a

    deposit taker for investors under the name of Rothwells


    Merchant Bank, which had begun its life as a Brisbanebased menswear chain.

    After the 1987 stock market crash There was a run on the bank from local investors. Connell put together a rescue package involving numerous

    Australian businessmen and approached the premier,


    Brian Burke, who provided a A$150 million government guarantee to provide short-term relief.

    Despite this, after Burke's resignation on 25 February

    1988, incoming premier Peter Dowding was required to


    enter very complicated and controversial dealings in an attempt to protect the government's interests.

    Rothwells ultimately went into liquidation, causing heavy

    losses to the government and Rothwells investors.

    Royal commission & main findings


    After approximately 21 months of enquiries and hearings, royal

    commission later found that:


    Mr Burke's motives in supporting the rescue were not related solely to proper governmental concerns. They derived in part from his well-

    established relationship with Mr Connell, the chairman and major


    shareholder of Rothwells, and from his desire to preserve the standing of the Australian Labor Party in the eyes of those sections of the

    business community from which it had secured much financial


    support.

    Mr Dowding, as premier, presided over a disastrous series of decisions designed to support Rothwells when it was or should have been clear to him and to those ministers closely involved that Rothwells was no longer a viable financial institution.

    This culminated in the decision to involve the Government, through WAGH, in the Kwinana petrochemical project as a means of removing the Government's contingent liability for certain of the debts of Rothwells. Electoral advantage was preferred to the public interest.

    The political fallout from the collapse as well as other government dealings in the period dominated media and political discourse in Western Australia during 1990, and

    premier Carmen Lawrence ultimately called the royal


    commission in November 1990 to investigate. The enquiry became known as the WA Inc royal commission and resulted in the jailing of Connell, Burke and a number of other involved parties.

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