Scanlans celebrate fruitful partnership

Ironically it was the self-effacing business founders, Peter Scanlan, 76, and his wife and business partner Margaret - they celebrated their golden wedding anniversary last year - who told the stories about themselves.

Mr Scanlan has been in the WA wool industry for 58 years, starting at age 18 at Hulme Wool Scouring before moving to Melco Pty Ltd which was part-owned by his father.

But after 25 years Melco was sold and Mr Scanlan and his wife took a massive gamble.

With a young family - they have five daughters - and virtually only his Melco long-service leave as back-up, they set out on their own to trade and export wool as PSW.

They borrowed to raise $160,000 to buy a large tin shed in O'Connor - the business is still located there - as a wool store.

PSW started trading on July 5, 1986 and they moved into the wool store on July 17.

Mr Scanlan recalled on Friday how his first wool-buying trip did not go well until good luck played its part.

He related the story to a celebration gathering of more than 120 wool clients - some he had been dealing with for up to 40 years - buyers, business associates, wool industry identities, family and friends.

Mr Scanlan had called at Neville McLean's Beverley property where he met another local woolgrower Ian Thurrell who he thought "a bit of a loud mouth", boasting about having sold his wool "on the sheep's back" in July for an August shearing for 450 cents (a kilogram) when the going rate was about 400.

"Knowing it was my first trip into the country buying he kept hounding me and hounding me, he wanted 500c for next year's wool," Mr Scanlan said.

"In the end I said 'you can't sell your wool without first asking your wife Jan' (who was at the celebration).

"He thought about it for a bit then said 'yes I can, I can sell it'.

"Well, I said, if you can sell it, I'll buy it.

"I signed him up for about a $1 (a kilogram) more than his clip was worth."

Later, disgusted with himself "for being so stupid", he threw the contract book in his car boot and did not tell his wife what he had done.

But by February the wool market had jumped up a dollar and he had his money back, so retrieved the contract from the boot.

By the time the wool was delivered, the market was up another dollar, so he made good profit on the deal, Mr Scanlan recalled.

"The next time I stopped to buy lunch in Beverley Jan spots me and comes storming up saying 'don't you ever buy my clip again without me being present'," he said.

Ms Scanlan recalled selling wool into India in the 1990s and having a client renege on payment for a container of wool delivered to the north of the country near the Pakistan border in 2001.

Three other Australian wool companies had the same problem with the client, but Ms Scanlan said she was the only one who decided, against all advice and without help from trade officials, to pursue payment through the Indian legal system.

She recalled her first trip to India in 2003 with long-term PSW employee Karen Smith for the initial court hearing.

It involved a six-hour train ride north from Delhi into the country, a sweltering tin shed courthouse without interior lights, manacled prisoners being led in next to them, representing themselves because their Delhi lawyer was not allowed in that province and a judge hearing three cases conducted simultaneously.

The case dragged on for more than six years through the Indian legal system with Ms Scanlan and Ms Smith attending three more court hearings in India and with a failed attempt by their client to appeal against an order to pay up.

"Eventually they did pay," Ms Scanlan said.

"We lost on the exchange rate, we lost on the interest, we lost because we had to travel to India four times to fight it, but we won.

"But that's not the end of the story.

"The people who diddled us then decided we were quite good guys so they started buying wool from us again.

"We became good friends with them and last year we even holidayed together," she said.

Mr Scanlan thanked the company's woolgrower clients, the bank which had supported him from the start, Kevin Miller and his son Trevor who had carted wool for them for 30 years, wool buyers who had helped them, his staff and his family.

He made special mention of two current staff members, PSW store manager Darren Shivers who joined the company as a 16-year-old in October, 1986, and Ms Smith, who he had worked with at Melco and who joined PSW two days a week in 1988 and went fulltime the following year.

Mr Scanlan recalled that when he started PSW, Russia was the main customer for Australian wool, bank interest rates were up to 25 per cent and there was a floor price for wool.

Now China was the main customer, bank interest rates are at record lows and there is no floor price, but wool prices are back up to where they once were.

"It's taken 30 years, but they've got back up there," he said.

Speaking on behalf of PSW clients, York farmer Chris Chipper seemed to sum up the sentiment of guests at the celebration when he said: "I've never heard Peter talk wool down. As far as he's concerned, there's always a market for wool."

"I've never hung up the phone after dealing with Peter, or left the office here thinking we could have done better," he said.