Wed, June 16, 2010 1300SMILES In The News: Nice Teeth, and Share Results Worth Smiling About - THE AGE.COM.AU
CHRISTOPHER WEBB, theage.com.au
This article also appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald June 16 2010.
Excerpt: EVERY Wednesday morning, Dr Daryl Holmes does what he did for the RAAF 22 years ago - looks after people's teeth.
The morning dental session keeps his hand in and, besides, he says he likes doing it.
The rest of the time he runs the listed 1300Smiles, which operates 20 dental practices with about 100 chairs, almost all in Queensland.
1300 provides rooms, equipment, and back-office support to self-employed dentists, and Holmes, the company's founder, says the dentists usually earn more than if they run a solo practice. 1300 also employs dentists.
The company listed five years ago with no underwriter and no stockbroker's name attached to the prospectus. It was a no-frills effort and that's the way Holmes, 45, has kept it, with the annual reports containing his homespun letter to shareholders.
He owns 70 per cent of the company and reels off a string of maxims about how he runs the show.
''Don't rip people off, try to keep improving your company, don't overpay for businesses, don't over-leverage, be frugal and stick to your knitting,'' he says.
It seems to be working. The shares which 1300SMILES - its phone number is plastered on billboards in Queensland - issued at 80¢ five years ago are now fetching $3.06.