CEOs MADE IN GIBRALTAR > Gibraltar's entrepreneurs
by Ray Spencer | January 13th, 2011
It is only in comparatively recent years, primarily as a result of the growth in the finance centre and the e-Gaming sector, that international firms have made an impact on Gibraltar's economy. However, the successful wider economy is still strongly associated with local entrepreneurial businesses such as the six featured here. A remarkable feature of their success, whether these businesses are engaged in trade locally or internationally, is that they are invariably family affairs. Most have grown over generations and similarly depend on long-serving teams of employees whose own families have a long history on the Rock. That some businesses have had roots in the territory for over 200 years is testimony to the durability and determination of their principals. Gibraltar is a tight-knit community, where everyone seems to know everyone else and many people are in some form related. However, our featured entrepreneurs generally retain a low profile, preferring to develop their business outside the glare of publicity, that some of them even positively shun.
Described as possibly the most successful Gibraltarian, in the space of 20 years, 57-year-old George Bassadone has turned the small family car dealership he inherited from his father into an international emergency vehicle re-supply giant for government bodies and specialist relief agencies.
When a leading Danish motor dealer asked George to supply five Toyota vehicles for aid work in Africa, he spotted an opportunity and developed the market to the extent that 4 years later, Toyota asked him to sell directly to aid agencies. Since the mid-1980s, Toyota Gibraltar Stockholdings (TGS) has supplied and converted at its local base more than 100,000 vehicles using ports in Spain and has set up a car distribution business in Finland and the Baltic countries.
In just four weeks Bassadone provides bespoke vehicles worldwide for organisations like Oxfam and the UN, accounting for half the average 300 monthly unit sales. Vehicles are mainly used in Africa, but are also shipped to Asia and South America and TGS recently built 200 ambulances for use in Peru.
George motivates his 200-strong team through delegation. "If every decision has to come back up the line then we lose our agility. Whatever the emergency, the first thing personnel on the ground need is a vehicle."
THE STRATEGIST
James Levy Senior Partner at Hassans
A collapsible card table and chair in the reception area of his uncle's tiny solicitor's office were the humble beginnings in 1976 for James Levy QC, now senior partner at Hassans, Gibraltar's largest legal firm, with 70 lawyers and 7 trainees. It helped that the founder, Sir Joshua Hassan, was a former Chief Minister, but it was also a potential hindrance.
Levy, who gained 'Star Individual' ranking in Chambers Global 2010, subtly grew his 24-strong partner base over 30 years as part of a strategy to ensure the firm's political diversity and acceptability. He and his team of 250 now lead or support development of local legislation, promote international commercial and joint venture deals and provide specialist teams in litigation, funds, taxation and property, among others.
Described as a dynamo of work who transformed Hassans from a sleepy practice, Levy is credited with commercialising Gibraltar's legal sector after introducing the UK system of charges based on time management. He also put the jurisdiction on the world's legal map by gaining Parliamentary drafting work for South Africa, Maldives and Malta. Four Hassans lawyers are members of the British Virgin Islands (BVI) Bar while other partners have addressed conferences in London and Tel Aviv.
THE VISIONARY
James Gaggero Chairman of Bland Group International
In selling GB Airways (GBA), the Bland Group's core business for over three generations, James Gaggero took a calculated risk and on becoming chairman in 2007 and with more than £100m cash as a result, wondered where next to invest.
Already an integrated business in the local tourist sector – with the Rock Hotel, Blands coaches, Gibair aircraft handling and the Avis car hire franchise – Bland strengthened its foothold in a Southampton firm supplying civil, military and government amphibious and hover craft worldwide, by absorbing its only serious UK competitor.
Endorsement of his vision to aid talented British engineering firms that lack management expertise and finance came when Prince Harry recently praised Universal Engineering's Ranger – a fast, lightweight armoured vehicle with a revolutionary v-shaped base giving occupants superior bomb blast protection. It was the biggest of Gaggero's 4 investments in 2009 and he now employs over 700 in 18 businesses without any borrowing, as well as owning substantial property.
He's since devolved control of existing and new Gibraltar projects to a separate local team, preferring to work in the background diversifying risk according to location and business sectors.
THE ADVENTURER
John Bassadone President of Gibunco Group
Arguably Gibraltar's largest and most successful business, Gibunco was set up by John J Bassadone 45 years ago as an underwater cleaning and maritime engineering operation to make ships go faster. Since then it has developed into oil and energy supply, shipping, maritime engineering, logistics, real estate and property development.
Bassadone kick-started the jurisdiction's now huge bunkering sector to supply vessels using the Straits and East Atlantic, becoming, alongside Spain's Cepsa in a joint venture, the largest importer and distributor of marine fuels, servicing 1600 ships annually from a fleet of barges. Recognising the potential for exporting its expertise, he formed Peninsula Petroleum in 1997 as a major bunker and lubricant supplier in Ceuta, the Canary Islands and Panama, as well as becoming a global trader with offices worldwide.
Trained as a marine and civil engineer, Bassadone managed to combine both aspects by taking Gibunco into property development, becoming instrumental for reclaiming over 30 hectares of land from the sea for housing and offices and the rejuvenation of the Gibraltar seafront and harbour side. Gibunco is a leader in Gibraltar's largest planned office development – 4 blocks totalling 38,000 sq m at Midtown.
Originally a manager of corporate and trust services as a 1982 founder member of Fiduciary Group, Lawrence Isola became head of its property management and property development. By 2000 an Arab group had bought Gibraltar's largest office complex of 5 towers at Europort, where Isola had doubled occupancy to reach capacity in just five years.
He then saw the opportunity to provide London or New York quality Internet connectivity and formed Sapphire Networks out of Gibnet, a small, secondary Internet service provider with little of its own infrastructure. In less than a decade Sapphire has transformed into a leading provider for large international gaming companies, with the incumbent, half state-owned Telco as backup, he says.
Investment in fibre optic cabling, plus infrastructure both sides of the border using diverse circuits from Telefonica and Ono, enables Isola to boast that in nearly 4 years "we haven't had a single outage between Gibraltar and Madrid."
As part of a group that also includes Gibraltar's oldest law firm Isolas and estate agent BMI, he's been innovative with precious bandwidth by selling cheap weekend sporting and special event capacity well beyond contracted rates. Now Isola plans to build a data centre office block.
While the 1985 opening of the Gibraltar frontier after 16 years was a key moment for the whole community, John Gaggero quickly realised the need for significant investment. "Infrastructure, which had been put into a deep freeze for the period, had to be kick-started again," he says.
The 200-year-old MH Bland (MHB), of which John is chairman, set about capturing the lion's share of shore excursions for passengers from the fast expanding local cruise ship market and Malaga and Cadiz. The cable car it built to the top of the Rock was updated; stevedoring and delivering ship stores and lube oils to vessels in the Bay was expanded, as were ship agency services beyond Gibraltar to the Spanish ports of Algeciras and Ceuta.
Gaggero is now focusing on a myriad of opportunities in Spain and trade with the Maghreb, as well as the Strait as a cruise liner growth area. "We have no ambitions to go global or pan-European," Gaggero declares. MHB management aims for decision-making at the lowest possible level, resulting in loyal people who often stay for life.
But Gibraltar's recent loss of two cruise lines is a wake-up call, he feels; the tourist product needs to be reinvented (only a fraction of the territory's heritage is seen) to compete with neighbouring ports.
