Contents

1. Subjects/Themes
- His business acumen
- Public man with a Private Life
- Getting the best out of the people in his businesses
- Wizard Home Loans
â?? Wizard and Banks
- Mark Bouris and Kerry and James Packer
- Bouris and Yellow Brick Road and Celebrity Apprentice
- Bouris and the Sydney City/Easts Rugby League team
- Selling Wizard to General Electric Corporation
- Bouris' property sale
- Bouris' immediate family
- Bouris' Partners and Children

2. Bibliography

1. Subjects/Themes

His business acumen

Bouris is not ruthless as he has regards for other people. Bouris is very hard working, tough-minded, competitive, disciplined, creative, has a strong work ethic and is a natural born leader with fantastic people skills, wanting to be the best at what he does. James Packer described Bouris as being "street smart with serious intelligence...he looks at complex issues and works his way through them with a great deal of sophistication." Bouris has quite a few extracurricular activities like love of beautiful cars, art and real estate like a farm in Byron Bay.

Mark Bouris has got the goods as a slick, professional and smart businessman. His strategies and action plans have put him at the forefront of business and finance in Australia.

He has a Bachelors and Masters in Commerce. Bouris worked as a Chartered Accountant in the initial stages of his career and then in a law firm for about seven years. He made mistakes with some investments when he was younger but learned from them. This shows no one is perfect and Bouris should have been allowed to make mistakes. Bouris was into money and business, with the incentives and indulgences that went along with it.

Public man with a Private Life

Behind the public image lies a very private man. Bouris has different personas, one for work and the other for home and family life. He does not mess around and is straightforward, telling people what he thinks. He's not good at sympathy and when a person gets upset.

Bouris is a bit undisciplined at home, being more relaxed. His kids are a great grounding force, with sometimes his public persona getting somewhat carried away. Martha, Bouris' second wife, states how she would like Bouris to broaden his social life, being somewhat of private man.

Getting the best out of the people in his businesses

His number one goal is getting the best possible outcome from the people in his organization. He drives each one of his people, even giving them a hug when need be.

Wizard Home Loans

Bouris actually found the word Wizard from the dictionary, making a list of 20 names to select from. In time, Wizard became one of the best mortgage companies in Australia. A lot of people have done well through Wizard with Bouris helping them to build their wealth.

Bouris' millions have not come overnight, they have taken time. His Wizard Home Loans sponsored the NSW Blues State of Origin team when the great half Andrew Johns was playing for the team. Just think of the level of skill and expertise it would have taken to get Wizard Home Loans to sponsor a successful outfit as the NSW Blues State of Origin team.

Wizard and Banks

Wizard took advantage of a weakness and void and deregulation of the mortgage industry from the mainstream banks, going after a piece of the market. Mark looks to provide a certain reputation and image to Wizard. Symonds and Bouris were pioneers in the industry. According to Adrian Bouris, Mark's brother, "Banks, at the time, were alienating their customers, introducing fees, having long queues and not passing on interest savings... and Wizard took advantage of that." Again Adrian Bouris states how, "Wizard's success relied upon being in the right place at the right time, being innovative and the culture of the people." Bouris thoroughly took advantage of any threat that came his or Wizard's way.

Wizard, along with the also popular Aussie Home Loans of John Symonds, brought in more affordable products and better loans. The difference with Aussie and Wizard was that Wizard brought in branches and Aussie was not into that at the time.

There are around 250 branches of Wizard in Australia and New Zealand, similar to the distribution of McDonald's -- "At Wizard, the person who runs the branch, owns the branch. It is purely commission with no wage. But there is definitely an incentive there to earn money...some of the branches earn around a million a year."

Mark Bouris and Kerry and James Packer

Bouris struck a deal with Packer. Kerry Packer initially wanted someone in Bouris who had been there done that, and had worked for and lost money and learned their lesson from it. Packer was an in-depth thinker who was one step ahead, almost like a sage (wise man) in a way. Kerry liked Mark; both respected one another and had a good friendship.

The Packers put a lot of money into Bouris' Wizard and the Packers made five times their money. Channel 9 and ACP Properties, part owned by the Packers, were of great benefit to Wizard at the time. An example of this was the successful sponsorship of the NSW Blues State of Origin team. As a part of its branding and marketing strategy, Bouris states how millions of dollars went into sponsoring various sports in Australia like Rugby League, AFL and Rugby Union, and also some lifestyle programs on television.

Bouris also appeared in some of the Wizard advertisements and his good looks and charm also added a solid element to the Wizard brand. Adrian Bouris stated how his brother Mark was always a bit of a chick magnet.

Bouris and Yellow Brick Road and Celebrity Apprentice

As if Wizard Home Loans would be enough, now Yellow Brick Road is taking Bouris' finance savvy to a new level. Yellow Brick Road (YBR) is a recent finance business created by Mark Bouris. Bouris' salary from YBR is said to be $750,000 base salary. YBR was made popular by Bouris appearing and taking part in the ever popular TV show Celebrity Apprentice in Australia. On the show, Bouris is the boss and judge of supposed famous apprentices from all walks of life.

Bouris sees Celebrity Apprentice as a perfect way to enhance the focus of YBR's products and services, by having an effective marketing spend across television and digital marketing. Other marketing and advertising services with Channel Nine, under the Packers, came to around $2.5 million over two years. YBR's sponsorship of Celebrity Apprentice came to around $883,000. American Billionaire Donald Trump also acts in the US version of Celebrity Apprentice with the popular line, 'Your Fired', if the apprentice does not perform as expected.
(Kruger, C. August 3, 2015)

Bouris and the Sydney City/Easts Rugby League team

Bouris got involved with the Sydney City, or Easts Rugby League team. He has been on the board of the team for a few years now. Bouris takes his boys to watch the Roosters at home games. Mark has earned some great friendships whilst being at the Roosters with "Nick Politis, Peter Newton, David Gyngell and of course James Packer." He takes advantage of opportunities that come his way.

Selling Wizard to General Electric Corporation

Bouris made one of the biggest and important decisions of his career by selling Wizard to General Electric Organisation (GEC), or GEC Money, in December 2004, for $400 million. It took over a year to sell. GEC is one of the largest companies in the world, like the oil company Exxon, with revenues of about $165 billion dollars and operating in 51 countries. GE Money is one of six businesses of GEC. Selling to GEC made Wizard competitive with the riches of the banks. GE even sent teams of anonymous people to scour Wizard in every detail.

Bouris remained as Chairman of what is now Wizard International in 2006, after the GE sale. With the sale to GE, Bouris is bringing out other products like insurance products, personal loan products, credit cards and other things that banks usually do. Bouris has pushed and challenged Wizard and GE by helping GE grow its mortgage wing in the countries it operates under, like Europe, Latin America, Asia and India.

Bouris' property sale

Bouris bought into once was Sydney's tallest residential building a decade ago, with a three bedroom apartment to create a five bedroom spread over 420 square metres.

He now has a property in Watson's Bay of a 25-year lease on an 1881-built heritage residence on Camp Cove. Bouris earned more than $8 million for his larger two-storey home. (Macken, L. January 30, 2015)

Bouris' immediate family

Bouris' father came from Greece in the late 1940's and his mother was Irish-Catholic background. Mark came from a good and hardworking family where he became trained for this type of living. Bouris' initial good family upbringing and routine has flowed onto his own family. Bouris' father had a caf�© in the central and famous George Street in the city. He was also a factory worker and at one stage had seven jobs, with one full-time job and six part-time jobs. His mother had a night-time occupation. They were brought up in the rough-and-tough Punchbowl in the Canterbury-Bankstown area of Western Sydney, known to be a Rugby League-strong region. Mark's mother Marsha also believed in hard work and for working for what you want in life without it being given to you.

Bouris is the oldest sibling in the family and has three younger brothers who play an important part in his life. Bouris is very caring, but strict and livable with his family. He does swimming, weight training and self-defence with his family. Their father was good with his hands and passed this onto the Bouris boys.

Mark's brother Dane got into property development and management and investment, not taking a liking to working at Mark's Wizard at first. This family business taught Dane to be ambitious and have that hunger for success and the better things in life. Mark's brother Adrian on the other hand has been with Wizard all his life. Mark's father George said it was good to see all his family work together and relying on each other.

His Partners and Children

Bouris has aimed to provide a happy, stabilized and well-educated family. He has been married twice. He has one child to the first marriage and three children to the second marriage. He acknowledged how marriage ending is a complex thing. It would also be hard to be single whilst in the public eye, as well as look after such relationships. He has been single for 18 months. His success at business interests and level of support to give to his kids also influenced the relationship with his partners. He currently has good relationships with his children and good friendships with his former partners, and he looks to maintain these great relationships and friendships.

When Mark's second wife had been chronically ill, he spent more time with his children -- "Unless I have a pressing engagement for work, I would spend every night of the week with the children at home, having a meal with them."

2. Bibliography
- ABC (August 14, 2006) 'Making a Mark', Australian Story
- Kruger, Colin (August 3, 2015) 'Nine's Celebrity Apprentices won't stray from Mark Bouris' Yellow Brick Road', Sydney Morning Herald
- Macken, Lucy. (January 30, 2015) 'Title Deeds: Mark Bouris sells city pad for more than $8 million', Domain