Lindsay Fox a kingpin of banking 14 March 2024 3:16AM Ian Rogers Payment facility provider, M&A THE BULLDOZER: LIndsay Fox Comment: When it’s a high wire act played to extremes on both sides, you cannot be too fazed that one side wins out just like they planned. The Australian banking industry have been played for fools, disoriented into submitting to a modern version of an age old Lindsay Fox disruption plan. Fox and Linfox screwed over Coles Myer mightily on the transport contract long ago. Winning a 10-year whole-of-company contract, bid at a preposterously low price, Fox brazenly hiked prices by 30 per cent two or three years into the contract. All or almost all competitors were eliminated or side-lined into business Fox was content to leave to others. So, after 10 years, there was only one bidder and Linfox retains the Coles trucking business to this day. Lindsay Fox, his family and his firm did not and do not give a fig for any contract or any other code of conduct other than their own. They did not then and they do not now, a time when brawling with banks and bulldozing the industry into submission is top of mind for many of the top minds in the company. Lindsay Fox and his advisers are all in it to make a motherload of money. Chiefly for themselves, and good on them. If there is anyone succeeding in business in this country on their terms – however flawed – that person is Lindsay Fox. The deft and now dramatic smash and grab job on the Australian banking industry via gouging on cash-in-transit, leaves Banking Day, on balance, able only to sit back and wonder. Look at the opportunities unfolding for Linfox. They have stormed into a vulnerable segment of the banking industry and claimed it as their own. They are not ninnies and with this foot in the door they won’t be leaving. Except on their terms of course. There are numerous adjacent segments to those in which Linfox now operates in banking that the Fox family and Linfox may well take their time and explore. Expect Lindsay Fox and his interests to stick around in banking, making mischief and making money, for a long, long time.
