The Right Guy
A stalwart of the Wellington business community, Stewart Balfour has significantly expanded his portfolio this year. His firm, Balfour Holdings, secured key government infrastructure contracts in the Wairarapa region.
Known for his ownership of the Gale Force rugby club, Mr Balfour remains a formidable figure in both the boardroom and the sporting arena. Educated at Wellington's Scots College, Balfour graduated from Victoria University with a Bachelor of Laws. He has remained close with opposition leader Kirkland Musson, with whom he studied at both a secondary and tertiary level. Founding Balfour Holdings after a successful career at Equifin Corporation, Balfour has funded development projects throughout New Zealand and northern Queensland.
Balfour Holdings has recently purchased the Datacom building on Jervois Quay.
But where Mr Balfour has made his mark is in the world of sport. A key figure in many a high performance boardroom throughout New Zealand, he personally funded the Olympic and World Championship campaigns of a dozen New Zealand athletes, including world champion rower Anissa Lee. He has been the owner and majority shareholder of Wellington's formidable Gale Force rugby club for ten years, and is widely considered to be a leading contender for a top job at Rugby New Zealand. A competitive and unrelenting capitalist, Balfour is known for his steely political manoeuvring and unrelenting standards in the pursuit of success.
Most recently, Balfour was responsible for brokering a lucrative multi-million dollar deal with TV4 to maintain exclusive rights to Gale Force matches, a polarising move some see as cementing his future in the sport, and others decry as exclusionary and anti-competitive.
As a patron of sports, Balfour and his wife Kathleen helped fund the construction of a new swimming complex neighbouring their daughters' secondary school. Drawing controversy, the $24M project was widely criticised for refusing an application from local state schools to share access to the facility. Despite receiving significant public funding, the indoor 25m pool and diving well remain exclusively for use by the private girls' school.
The pool remains exclusively in use by Balfour's daughters' school, a $40,000 per year private college west of the city.
Mr Balfour lives in Wadestown with Kathleen, dividing his time between his Queensland ventures and his interests in the capital. He has four adult children: Amy, 29; Benjamin, 27; Carl, 24 and Jessica, 21.
"He walked away, all boat shoes and white linen, like he owned not only the house, but everyone in it."