Having fun, making money, saving the world

By Mark Fuller

ECKART WINTZEN doesn't believe in doing business the traditional way. The 59-year-old multimillionaire runs his ethical investment company, Ex'tent, from a medieval castle near Utrecht with just a secretary and a couple of 'handymen'.

He's not quite sure about the extent of his company's investments or their value. But fie says he is 'hopeful' that some of them will pay off. Anyway, he is having fun - and that's his number one business principle.

Of course, if you are as rich as Wintzen, you can afford to say these sorts of things and more. 'I don't take money seriously,' he says. 'But I can make money if I want.'

You can also indulge in the type of aging hippy persona he cultivates - shoulderlength hair, washed-out jeans and casual checked shirts.

You can dabble with all kinds of thinktanks, sustainable economic theories and good causes. At the same time, Wintzen has a seat on the advisory board to ING, one of the country's biggest financial institutions. Why? 'Because it's great to observe how such a giant mechanism like the bank works - I believe in permanent education'.

But the thing with Wintzen is, it is all genuine. He DOES have fun. His thunderous laugh continually echoes around the beautiful living room-cum-office he occupies in the castle. He laughs at himself, at you or just because he likes to. He's been wearing the same style of clothes for decades. And he outlines with a boyish enthusiasm which or entrepreneurs last experienced at school.

'I can't take myself seriously,' he says. But he is taken seriously by traditional business people, and he is an extremely successful businessman by any of the criteria which apply in that world.

Wintzen's fame and wealth are derived from BSO/Origin, the leading international computer consultancy he built up from a virtually bankrupt information systems company, which he acquired for f 10 ($5) in 1976. When Wintzen sold his stake in the company, following its merger in 1996 with C&P, the computer systems unit of Philips, it had over 10,000 employees and f2 bn in turnover.

Winning cell structure

'I might be a good businessman in a traditional sense, but I get to my targets in a non-traditional way,' explains Wintzen, referring to the 'cell structure' which drove BSO from nothing to the top. The cell structure meant that once BSO grew to 51 employees the organization was divided into two units ' each handling half the market. And so on it went, the company multiplying like an amoeba.

'The idea behind it is that people work best with people they know and when their own responsibility is the main engine driving enthusiasm and quality,' he says.

However, Origin, as the merged company is now known, has not continued with the structure, adopting instead Philips' traditional management organization. The company has been making heavy weather of the merger, with losses and abrupt changes of leadership over the past two years. A new administration system, introduced by Philips, is still causing problems.

Wintzen, who has a seat on Origin's supervisory board. says the company's problems have been overestimated. 'Origin is in a turnaround situation. It's now out of the doldrums. One way of seeing it was that Philips' people didn't really understand the cell concept. BSO's way of financial reporting is not compatible with that of Philips. It doesn't provide for the type of consolidation that Philips wants. Overheads are dealt with in a different way.'

Wintzen has no bitterness about his system being ditched. 'Philips is a very strong traditional force and wants things done its way. It would have been more fun doing it my way. But the more traditional management style will certainly work out as well.'

Some, however, suggest that Wintzen's creative, freewheeling style was too chaotic for a big organization and that this is why he relinquished control following the merger. He disputes this: 'Look at Visa, which has 100,000 employees and a trillion dollars in turnover, all done on a cell-like structure. It is true that it only works for the services industry or when business is repetitive. You can't build a Boeing with it. But you could run a bank.'

Manager of chaos

Still, he revels in his chaotic image -'look at the mess on my desk' - and styles himself 'head of chaos' at Ex'tent. 'I don't like pompous titles. I know it's a bit silly but I do create chaos, which the others in the organisation then resolve.'

Explaining the extent of his Dew business, Wintzen is equally chaotic. He doesn't know if it is making a profit or not. He points to a list of some 25 supervisory board seats, advisory posts and think-tank memberships and says 'they are also Ex'tent'.

There are a number of functions directly related to his investments, such as seats on the supervisory boards of Ben & Jerry's Benelux ice cream business or Hiltermann Lease, a car leasing firm, that attributes its successful growth to its BSO-like cell structure.

Others, such as his membership of the government advisory board for transport and

public works, or the board advising Holland's leading research and applied science institute, are due to his fascination with technology.

Even his position with ING has implications for his thinking on technology, even if he is often mistaken by the financial group's staff as a delivery man. 'I am interested in how a financial institution handles technology and how my brain can influence that process,' he says.

Wintzen will not be drawn, however, on the value of his personal assets, and says it is difficult to assess the assets of Ex'tent. The organization’s dozen or so investments are divided into large investments in 'bound money makers' and smaller stakes in things that he feels deserve to exist even if they might never be really profitable.

In the first category are Advanced Immuni T, the US-based pharmaceuticals company, and a project to set up a new media college in San Francisco later this year. Advanced Immuni T of the US is working on drugs based on an artificial peptide 'T', which could play an important role in helping immunity systems fight the HIV and other viruses.

'I own virtually all the company and I am investing millions in it. But its shares are currently worthless. If it is success, it will make a fortune. If it fails I will have to write off the whole blooming thing.'

Wintzen will soon know how his bet has fared, as the company is expected to apply for a licence from the US Food and Drug Administration for its prototype drug next year.

A surer bet is his project for a new media school in San Francisco. Costing $10 min, the college will open in six months to serve the growing market for professionals in new media. 'Thousands of silicon graphics and digital audio machines are being made, but there are not enough people to operate them. My college will train people in one year through a total immersion course,' he explains.

The location is crucial, says Wintzen. 'San Francisco will be the heart of the digital media industry. It is next to Silicon Valley and close to Hollywood, which is increasingly using digital media. Wired magazine is based there, and George Lucas (of Star Wars fame) has just set up shop there.'

Worthy projects

Ex'tent is also involved in projects that Wintzen believes have the 'right to exist' even if they are not going to generate a fortune.

Source, a Dutch magazine for socially-responsible business 'just had to get printed although my 20% stake is continuing to cost me money,' he says.

A similar stake in the Dutch arm of French nature goods chain Nature & D6couvertes is never going to make 'piles of money', Wintzen admits.

But he is not interested in the role of benefactor. 'I hate losses and I expect the assets of Ex'tent to have doubled in five years,' he says. He plans to more than double the scope of Ex'tent's holdings in the next two years, moving into a new project every one to two months. His business instincts and capital attract two and three enquiry’s from hopefuls every month, he says.

Wintzen also finds time for his Home Foundation, a body to promote a sustainable economy and another foundation to improve environmental awareness.

Although he has been dubbed the champion of ethical entrepreneurship and sustainable economics, he now says that image is a 'load of bullshit'.

'I, in just a realist, trying to contribute to the necessary changes. I can make proposals for a new economic model,' he says. 'I can't stop us destroying the world.'

Wintzen has developed a three-pronged approach to the environmental problem. 'First we have to quantify the damage done by calculating what I would call the 'extracted value'. Then we have to move towards a tax system based on this extracted value from the planet, not on income or labour, which only puts people out of work.'

'Products would have to account for the value extracted from the environment. Levi's jeans would reflect the cost of pesticides, herbicides and artificial fertilisers on the ecology, which are used intensively to produce cotton. The real cost to the planet could be $ 100 rather than $50 a pair.'

Companies would be gradually eased into the new tax system, and would probably change products as a result. 'Services, employing people, would become more important. Supermarkets would bring the goods to you rather than you going to the supermarket,' he says.

And then the money generated by the new taxation system could be used to clean up the current mess. 'Gross national product will have to be redefined. At present a plane crash is seen as a boost to GDP. A new plane has to be ordered. Insurance companies do business and clean-up companies get orders.'

Wintzen believes the changes can be achieved in his lifetime. 'Even the Dutch ultra-conservative pro-business party VVD are talking about moving taxation away from labour and income,' he notes.

His vision of the future will soon be on the Internet. The first instalment of a book he has been writing about his philosophy for the past couple of years will be published on his new website. 'The book will take at least another five years to complete, but by using Internet I can start the discussion now,' he says, convulsing in another explosion of laughter.