Allan Hubbard (businessman)
Allan James Hubbard (23 March 1928 – 2 September 2011) was a businessman who lived in Timaru in the South Island of New Zealand, and was the founder of South Canterbury Finance, New Zealand's largest locally owned finance company. In 2006, the New Zealand Listener described Hubbard as the most powerful businessman in the South Island. Hubbard was listed on the New Zealand Listener Power List from 2005 through to 2007 and he was listed on the Primary Sector Power list at number four in 2009. Hubbard had significant interests in dairy farming, irrigation systems, finance and helicopters. He was one of three directors of Dairy Holdings Limited, which in 2007 owned 57 dairy units, and 10 grazing blocks in the South Island. In the 2006–07 season Dairy Holdings Limited milked 44,000 cows on 16,120 hectares and produced 14.3 million kg of milksolids. Hubbard died as the result of an Oamaru car crash. After being stabilised at Oamaru Hospital, he died in a short helicopter ride while being transferred from the hospital to Dunedin Hospital on 2 September 2011. In February 2012, the Oamaru police charged a 40-year-old man with careless driving causing death and injury, and he was found guilty in August 2013. Early life Hubbard was born in 1928 in Dunedin. His parents lived with five children in a three-bedroom Dunedin North cottage with no electric lighting. In the Depression, his father was unemployed plumber who had to plant pine seedlings on a work scheme. Hubbard's first job was on a Taieri Plains dairy farm. He then worked as a clerk for Trustees Executors while studying part-time for his School Certificate, University Entrance and an accountancy degree from the universities of Otago and Canterbury. In 1953, he and Jean Hubbard, who had been a fellow student at Otago, moved to Timaru where he did bookkeeping for the Craighead school while establishing the accounting firm Hubbard Churcher. In the mid-1950s he provided the backing for Doug Shears and Helicopters New Zealand Ltd. Also in the 1950s, Hubbard gained control of South Canterbury Finance, a small-time lender to local businesses and households. In 1962 Hubbard bought a dairy farm. South Canterbury Finance In 1926, South Canterbury Finance Ltd started as a small-time lender to local businesses and households in Timaru. Allan Hubbard bought South Canterbury Finance in either the 1950s or in 1960. According to Lee, Hubbard and Hugo Fanning established South Canterbury Acceptances and South Canterbury Credit Corp by 1960. They acquired South Canterbury Finance (SCF) by 1963 from a group of businessmen including a member of the Todd family. In 1964 Hubbard bought Fanning out, becoming the sole owner. The "originally modest" company began to achieve "real size" after buying Canterbury Finance from Humphrey Rolleston in 1986, in return for a 23% holding in Southbury Group, the owner of SCF and Hubbard's other assets. Rolleston and Hubbard established a series of regional finance companies. Rolleston left SCF in 2004. Hubbard was considered the driving force behind the company's