UPDATED: Australia has lost one of the most colourful figures in the nation’s corporate history with the death of Alan Bond after open heart surgery.
The 77-year-old businessman and fraudster never regained consciousness after an operation on Tuesday to replace a heart valve and repair two others.
After days in intensive care in a Perth hospital, the controversial high-flying businessman’s body gave up around noon today, robbing his ex-wife Eileen of a final goodbye, her dash from London coming too late.
Son John Bond said his father’s life was peppered with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, but to his family he was a good man who tried his best.
“He was just dad, a father who tried his best to be the best dad he could,” he said.
He spoke too of the enduing connection between his mother and his father, despite their split.
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“Mum and dad were always soul mates who never broke their connection, even though he could be very infuriating to her,” John Bond said.
“She was very sad she did not get back to see him one last time, though they did recently catch up and have a meal together in London.”
The family also spoke of his love for his second wife, theatre producer Diana Bliss, who died in 2012.
“He also loved Diana very much and missed her greatly in these past few years.
“We’ll all miss him very much – he’s had a great influence on many people.”
Mr Bond was best known for being the first non-American to win the once coveted America’s Cup sailing trophy in 1983, and also the biggest fraudster in Australian history.
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One of Australia’s richest men during the 1980s, Bond’s fall from grace began in 1992 when he declared bankruptcy.
He was jailed in 1997 for a $1.2 billion fraud involving his takeover of Bell Resources and was stripped of his status as Officer of the Order of Australia, which he had received 13 years earlier.
Mr Bond served three years behind bars before he was released in 2000 after a successful High Court appeal.
In 2008, BRW magazine named him among the 200 wealthiest people in Australia with an estimated wealth of $265 million.
As a 17-year-old, Mr Bond married Eileen in 1955 and they had four children together – John, Craig, Susane and Jody – before divorcing in 1992.
Susane was found dead in July 2000, aged 41, in her upmarket Peppermint Grove home.
John Bertrand, the skipper of the victorious Australia II, said its former crew mates would gather to have a beer in Mr Bond’s memory.
“That’s foregone conclusion,” he told Sky News.
AAP Image/Tony McDonough
