Episode
50 Ferraris, 4 exits and a fight for his life | Grant Baker | 2 Commas with Josh Comrie
- Published
- Jul 29, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 4420
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Summary
The Comma Club is now open for founding members — a private community for NZ founders building toward a multimillion-dollar exit: https://www.joshcomrie.com/club Grant Baker was sitting in his office on credit watch with BNZ when his phone rang. Eric Watson was calling from Palm Springs to say he'd sold Blue Star for a hundred million dollars. The deal had been done on a golf course in the dark. Grant thought he was joking. He wasn't. Ninety million came in shares. Six months later, when the lockup expired, those shares had doubled. Blue Star had grown from $2M to $1B in sales through 56 acquisitions and almost no working capital. That was exit one. Then came Empower, an electricity retailer Grant built to 150,000 customers and 10% of all NZ electricity sales before selling to Contact Energy. Then 42 Below, which Jeff Ross was making 500 cases a year of in his garage when Grant got involved, sold to Bacardi for $165M USD on $20M revenue. Then Turners, bought for $70M when Grant's own company was worth $20M, now approaching a billion dollar market cap. Along the way: a bowel cancer diagnosis the morning of his first Bacardi meeting, 50 Ferraris, and a decade backing Liam Lawson from a $4,000 airfare to Formula One. We get into: What 56 acquisitions taught him about what kills a roll-up strategy Why Bacardi paid a technology multiple for a spirits business and what that tells you about brand How to build a business that a specific buyer will have to acquire The cancer diagnosis, the 50/50 odds, and what his father's death three weeks later changed Why he disagrees with "follow your passion" and what he'd tell any young NZ founder If you're building something and wondering what four decades of exits, setbacks, and survival actually looks like from the inside, this one'…