Donald Brownlie Fleming

Donald Brownlie Fleming (born 12 April 1946) started his professional life as an accountant and later became a salesman, property developer, business developer and entrepreneur. He is a notorious bankrupt who has cost investors and shareholders tens of millions of dollars and has been referred to in the South Australian State Parliament as a "criminal".
Early life
Don was born in Motherwell, Scotland. His parents George and Jenny Fleming had at that time two daughters Shelia and Fiona.
The family migrated to Australia arriving on the ship
SS Asturias, in Woollamaloo on 30 December 1951.
Don’s father was an electrical engineer and was involved in the early development of Radar (History of radar) and another of George’s inventions The Fleming Starter was the technology that allowed computers to operate using Battery Power.
Soon after arriving the family moved to Adelaide, South Australia and for a short while were staying at the Pennington, South Australia Migrant hostels of South Australia.
Don started school in late January 1952 at Pennington Primary School. He remembers his first day very well as his mother had dressed him, like all well dressed Scottish boys, in a kilt.
Don spent the rest of the day fighting while all his class mates tried to see what a Scotsman wore under his kilt.
The teachers tried to solve the problem by placing Don into the girl’s class, which for a tough wee scot was very humiliating.
Don graduated from Primary school and started his high school education at Woodville High School, South Australia.
Don loved sport and played tennis, baseball and boxing.
During Don’s high school years he was not a great student and his second passion was music, and every spare minute not playing sport was taken up with learning to play the guitar and then starting up a high school .
The early days of the band were influenced by Cliff Richard and the Shadows and then of course The Beatles. The band stayed together until Don’s marriage in 1966.
Don has kept his interest in music. He has owned two recording studios and has been involved as an executive producer in many music projects. In the later days mainly recording and promoting Christian music.
After Don graduated from high school in 1964, he commenced studying accounting in the evenings; he went from getting average results as a high school student to getting excellent results in his accounting studies. Don topped the State in his exams and came second in the State in his results for "Cost Accounting".
Don qualified as an accountant in 1970, while working as an assistant accountant with ARC Engineering.
Accounting career
After qualifying as an accountant, Don was transferred to Papua New Guinea as Branch Accountant to establish a new manufacturing facility for ARC Engineering in Lae PNG.
Don worked in PNG for three years and it was there that his entrepreneur flair began.
His then wife, Carol, started a secretarial services in Lae PNG. Don and a friend noticed that the only way to advertise items for sale for those families returning to Australia was on the local Post Office information board.
Seeing the opportunity, Don arranged for the secretarial service to print classified advertising, and deliver the publication to all the houses, restaurants, bars, hotel and motels, etc., taking the first lot of ads straight off the Post Office notice board.
The idea took off and within twelve months the then publication known as “The Lae Trading Post” had grown to a sixty four page publication. The publication, soon after that, was sold to The Age in Melbourne and Don’s entrepreneurial life began.
The then Managing Director of ARC Engineering, Ken Cox, came to Lae. And while having a discussion with Don made the comment that “he really did not see Accountants as being on the team” to him Accountants were the scorers for the team.
This had a huge impact on Don, and following his success with the sale of the newspaper, Don decided form that point on in his life he wanted to become a player in business and not a scorer or observer.
Just before returning to Australia promotion from the company and Don was elevated to Residential Company Secretary. Don was offered a senior role in Accounting in the Sydney branch, however at that time Don wanted to carve out his own career.
Don considered his options and decided the best way for him to get into the game rather than be a scorer was to learn sales and marketing.
Sales career
In 1974 after returning from PNG, Don joined AMP Limited who had an excellent sales training programme, as an insurance salesman.
In his first two years, Don won several sales awards, one of the prizes getting to meet with Neil Armstrong “the first man to walk on the moon” for lunch.
The discussion over that lunch was a massive motivation for Don; he still has the photograph today and the words that Neil Armstrong said which I believe were a quote from Think and Grow Rich “whatever the mind of a man can believe he can achieve”
In 1975 AMP promoted Don as an Agency Manager he was given five Agents, (within the next two years) Don built this team to 21 Agents. During this time Don also got involved as one of the trainers for all of AMPs new sales recruits.
Don also got involved in motivational speaking outside of the insurance industry.
Coming from the background of an accountant, Don tackled selling as a profession and studied every aspect of sales that he could get his hands on.
Don was then recruited in 1977 by another insurance company Eagle Insurance. Eagle gave Don the opportunity to built his own Insurance brokerage, although very successful in gaining sales, Don learnt a valuable but hurtful lesson. In 1979 that having your own business although you have the opportunity for success you walk the tight rope on a daily basis of failure with circumstances totally outside of your control.
In 1979 Don had sold the insurance brokerage to the Cornell Group in Adelaide, all of the documentation to sell the business had been executed, from Don’s side of the ledger and the documentation was to be executed by Mr Richardson, the Managing Director of the Cornell Group the following morning.
Mr Richardson died in a car accident that very evening when his new V8 Porsche hit a tree on his way home to Victor Harbor.
The company was stuck in Limbo, as the new manager for the Cornell Group, would not endorse the transaction or release the business, until a full investigation was completed.
Don was stuck with the liabilities without access to the cashflow and assets.
Don’s, then wife, agreed to sell personal assets to make an offer to the creditors, and entered into an arrangement with creditors to pay them off over the next five years.
Statesman
It was this time in Don’s life that he met Milt Richards; he was speaking at a Christian Businessman’s breakfast in Adelaide.
Milt was working in Washington, D.C. and he offered to organise an invitation to what is known as the "National Prayer Breakfast". This is an event in Washington, D.C., USA, which every US President since Dwight D. Eisenhower has held, during the first week of February.
Political, business and community leaders from around 160 plus countries around the world are invited to attend the Breakfast and other associated functions.
Don first attended this breakfast in 1980, where he met Father Walter Lini, who was an Anglican Priest, Chief Minister for the Condominium Government of New Hebrides.
The New Hebrides were keen to achieve independence and Don was asked if he would assist by preparing a financial model for the country, which along with a new constitution and some fund raising was to support an application to the United Nations for independence.
Independence was achieved in 30 July 1980 and the new independent nation of Vanuatu was born. Don maintained his friendship and relationship with the newly elected Prime Minister, Father Walter Lini until his unfortunate death in February 1999.
Prime Minister Walter Lini honoured Don, by naming a street in Port Vila after him "Fleming Street".
Don continued to attend the Washington event every year as an invited guest since 1980. During this time he has had the privilege of meeting and becoming friends with Senators and Congressmen in the United States and political, business and community leaders around the world.
Don has a particular interest in the Asia Pacific region and established personal friendships with the former Prime Minster of Samoa Tofe Lau, Don was given the title of Matai (chief) Fa'amatai in Samoa, with the title of “Laue Moana”.
Ongoing projects
In 1998 Don commenced the construction of a coconut oil mill in Vanuatu, which at its peak production in 2004, generated 50% of the Vanuatu’s total export income. During this same period a roller mill was purchased in Madang PNG and in Apia Samoa.
A copra buying network was setup throughout the South Pacific.
In the mid to late 1980s Don became a share holder and Director of the Stewart Group of Companies. The Stewart Group consisted of a group of companies, which were involved in car dealerships, land subdivision, motels, caravan parks and property developments. Don personally did loan guarantees for the Stewart Group, and when the group collapsed in 1989, his guarantees were called upon.
Don declared himself bankrupt in March 1989.
The National Australia Bank at that time provided a good reference on the basis that it was not the fault of Don in the demise of the group and that Don has assisted the bank in the sell down of the Groups assets and the recovery of their loans.
The Major Shareholder of the Group, Allan Stewart, also provided a letter exonerating Don of any fault in the Groups demise.
The Stewart Group failed as a result of the Stock Market Crash in 1987 (), and the subsequent property crash late 1988, where banks began to make margin calls.
In 1995 Don started again with the formation of a company with a few friends that purchased a building at 41 Currie Street Adelaide. Two of the members from that original group then purchased the Mutual Community Building at 99 Gawler Place Adelaide for AU$7.8M, the property was upgraded, tenanted and subsequently sold three years later for AU$16.5M.
The same group acquired another high rise building at 20 Blackwood Street North Melbourne.
One of the original investors in the group, who had made an initial investment of AU$100K which was repaid twelve months later, after the fourth year the value of his investment in cash and property, had grown to over AU$5M.
The Elan Group started by Don had begun to develop with the success of the property transactions, and over the next few years developed into a diverse manufacturing and property holding group which boasted the largest aloe vera Plantation in the Southern Hemisphere with the only certified Organic Aloe Vera product production factory in Australia. One of the largest pistachio farms in Australia, the largest producer of organic coconut oil in the World. The group also had a canola crushing mill in the South East of Australia and were the fore runners of grape seed oil production in Australia.
The Elan Group also had a recording Studio and a Christian Music distribution/music industry company. The Group continued to be involved in Property Development, with its major acquisition 13 Grenfell Street Adelaide. The Head Office of the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) at the time.
The group was placed into voluntary administration in November 2005, when a contracted investment in the group was not honoured.
Current activities
Since that time Don has been successful as one of the Founders of My ATM Holdings Pty Ltd.
My ATM Holdings Limited has an impending Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). Novus Capital Limited has been appointed as Sponsoring Broker to My ATM to help raise capital for this impending IPO.
The My ATM public float was suspended by ASIC temporarily due to disclosure concerns held by ASIC.
The reissued prospectus halved the value of the company's assets.
He has been involved in many successful property developments over the past five years and has acted as a consultant to approximately ten companies over this period.

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