Last Friday, The Financial Review Magazine had an excellent 3,500 word profile on Greg Norman’s business empire. If you missed it, here are some of our favourite quotes from The Shark:

“I’m a fan of Kerry’s, of what Kerry’s done. You know he is very bullish in his application and process and it works very well for him.”
– endorsing Australia’s richest man

“I’ve wanted to play but I couldn’t play. I’ve wanted to practise but I couldn’t practise. So I’ve gone out there to play and only put in half the effort. That doesn’t fit with my psyche; it kills me. I think that’s why I have dived into the business side of it so much in the last 30 months because I have been very frustrated.”
– attributing his burgeoning business empire to injuries

“I didn’t realise that I could be as much of a visionary in understanding the end result in building a golf course before you even started putting a shovel in the ground. I can picture it; I can feel it. I kind of connect with nature and connect with what the property is, so I feel it evolving within myself before we start on the plans.”
– a humble man indeed

“We’ve opened over 50 golf courses and I have made one change order on one green in all of those. That’s why I spend a lot of time on each project because… whether it be for building a golf course or building a house, change orders will cost you a lot of money.”
– at an average of $1.5m per golf course, that’s a tasty $75 million for the shark and there are many more in the pipeline.

“The 12 projects we have, or the 16,000 houses we have under construction, [are] now really going to start churning out the cash. You’ve got this continual growth curve of cash coming in… You are reducing your debt, you’re cash flow-positive, and now everybody starts looking at you going ‘mmm … that’s a great business’.”
– the $5 billion Medallist golf course joint venture with Macquaire Bank sounds like it’s travelling well.

“I’ve learnt a lot because I do get on very, very well with the Macquarie guys. And the bank doesn’t have what I have, which is a sixth sense, a kind of street smart.”
– how does Macquarie make money in other deals without Norman’s street smarts?

“I get involved in the early stages. Your name’s on it and you need to find out what’s going on very early on,” he says. “But once it’s done, it’s out there. It’s minimal time for me.”
– owning 30% of a wine joint venture with Foster’s in the US sure sounds like easy money when US$30m is being grossed a year.

“If you are Polo or Estee Lauder, you can go out there and you can do whatever you want to do. But you have to build a company up to get that credibility. It kind of set us back a little bit.”
– reflecting on the failure of his Greg Norman cosmetics range.

“Nobody needs to know what I earn. A number came out the other day and my wife asked ‘is that right?’. I said ‘just chuckle at it, just laugh.’ They can’t find out what’s going on in a private business. They can speculate but there’s a Chinese wall that I’m hoping will stay up.”
– BRW‘s forecast of $230 million is thought to be well below the reality but Norman’s ain’t telling anyone what he’s worth.