STEVEN Goh may have just left the room from Sanford Limited’s point of view, but the company’s former CEO is already talking of a new financial services start-up business.
The same whiteboard in Mr Goh’s living room before he incorporated Sanford in November 1996 has re-turned, adorned with “fresh opportunities” Mr Goh has prioritised since forced from his CEO position during the IWL takeover.
“I’m kicking around a lot of opportunities at the moment. The financial services industry is ripe with opportunity,” he said.
Fresh from a two-week Asian tour with wife Yien Teh, Mr Goh is not restricting his enthusiasm to the value of spending time with his “long-suffering” partner.
He remains keen on melding financial services and technology, he says, but is nonetheless unwilling to disclose specific projects.
The opportunities on which he is most fired up are in North America, which he visited over summer, and in Asia.
In both places there are friends who can help, Mr Goh says, but he is most likely to still call Perth home.
“Perth has excellent resources and talent, and a networked world means you can easily run a global business from here,” he said.
Mr Goh appears rueful of capital strategy mistakes and affected by the “painful” large staff cuts during his time at Sanford. However, he is buoyed by his unshaken belief that IWL took one of the best opportunities, with regards to client base and technology, in a market offering plenty of bargains.
A dozen other groups expressed interest in Sanford, following IWL’s initial bid, Mr Goh says, but confidence was adversely affected during the first quarter.
Two weeks ago, prior to his Asian trip, Mr Goh accepted IWL’s offer, selling 1.47 million shares at 19 cents each.
IWL this week achieved compulsory acquisition status with Sanford earlier this week.
