With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/325830
production and a 14,000-head dairy operation, comprises substantial hold- ings in B.C., Saskatchewan and Wash- ington. They are also partners in a major project, long in the works, north of Squa- mish, that they plan to turn into an all- season resort to compete with Whistler. In his office on Hastings Street, Fran- cesco Aquilini, 53, recently sat down for an extended conversation with BCBusi- ness about his background, the lessons he's learned from failure and the phi- losophy that lies behind AIG's success. People describe you as driven. What drives you? Remember when interest rates shot up to 20 per cent in the 1980s? At one point, we worried we were going to lose everything. It's not a good feeling. Maybe deep down I'll always have that fear of going bankrupt. But I think what really drives me is the need to compete at the highest level. I remember talking to [ex- Canuck captain] Markus Naslund about what separates high achiev- ers from everyone else. He said when he was a kid in Sweden all he wanted to do was play hockey. He'd scream and shout until his parents agreed to take him. He was determined to be the best on his team. And the next team, and the next, right up to the NHL. There was something in him, right from the start. He just would not be denied. I guess I'm like that in business. You say you nearly went bankrupt in the early 1980s, at a time when many people did. How did you pull through? You just have to find a way. Failure was not an option. I'll give you an example— we owned a building on Haro in the West End. The property manager left, so my dad asked me to manage it. I was 19 or 20 years old. I remember the num- bers: $30,000 a month in rent, and at 6 per cent the mortgage was $15,000 a month. Add in maintenance and other expenses and the building made $5,000 or $6,000 a month. The mort- gage expired just when rates were going through the roof. Suddenly interest was 20 per cent and the monthly payment was more than the rent. Now we had to subsidize the building. If it went on for long, we'd go bankrupt. I figured the only answer was to raise rents, but the NDP had put in rent controls in the '70s. I put all the numbers together and showed the rental board exactly what would happen if we couldn't raise rents. They listened. They got it. They allowed bigger rent increases to help owners like us cover the mortgage. Plenty of other people benefited as well. You and your family are set financially. Why do you still go at a burnout pace? Why does a heart surgeon keep doing a dozen surgeries a day? Because he's spent 30 years getting really good at it. You love doing it. You have to do it. There's the joy of accomplishing some- thing. I'm not saying we're saving lives like surgeons, but we create opportu- nity and we love what we do. And lots of people make a living from what we do. You were a good enough linebacker in high school at Templeton secondary that you wanted to take a shot at playing football for a living. What happened? I had a scholarship to USC, and I went to the B.C. Lions training camp. When I told my dad I wanted to play pro, he said, "How much you make play- ing football?" I said, "I don't know, maybe $100,000." He said, "I pay you $100,000, come work for me." He wanted me to follow in his footsteps, but I think he also knew I wasn't good enough to make it in football at the pro level. So I learned about business from him while I was getting a BA at Simon Fraser and then an MBA at UCLA. What about informal education? Are there learning moments that stand out? When I was 18, my dad asked me to drive to Vernon with this real-estate agent to bid on a property there. I didn't have a clue about auctions. I asked my dad, "How high do you want to go?" and he said, "Just see how it goes." So we're there in the front row, I keep put- ting my paddle up, but when it gets over $300,000 I stop bidding. The 116 BCBusiness July 2014 peter holst "when i was 18, my dad asked me To drive To vernon wiTh This real-esTaTe agenT To bid on a properTy There. i didn'T have a clue abouT aucTions. i asked my dad, 'how high do you wanT To go?' and he said, 'JusT see how iT goes'" ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ p112-121_Aquilini_july.indd 116 2014-05-29 11:31 AM