New boss for iconic Qld manufacturer Everhard

Logan boy and plumber’s son Dean Jennings has returned to Brisbane after 20 years away to helm iconic Queensland manufacturer Everhard Industries.

Everhard Industries’ laundry tub. Iconic Qld manufacturer has new chief executive.

Logan boy Dean Jennings has returned to Brisbane after 20 years away to helm iconic Queensland manufacturer Everhard Industries.

Jennings, a former executive at Pacific Brands and Dorel Juvenile Australia, is the perfect man to head the 98-year-old company as it heads towards its centenary year.

Founded in 1926 by Alfred Davis, most Queenslanders would have had an Everhard laundry sink in their home at one stage.

“My dad was a plumber so from an early age and I was well aware of Everhard and its products including septic and drainage,” says Jennings.

The company, which remains owned by the same family, has since expanded into commercial waste systems, tapware and water treatment.

Jennings tells City Beat that he grew up in Logan in the 1970s, when outback toilets and the “night soil man” were still a common sight.

New Everhard boss Dale Jennings

He says Everhard, which employs about 170 people, still manufactures all of its products from its Geebung headquarters, a rarity in a sector that has offshored so much of its operations in recent decades. “We need to future proof Queensland manufacturing,” he says. “The building market is super challenging at the moment.”

He says once he gets his feet under the desk, he will be looking at progressing things like automation and sustainability within the firm. Everhard Industries chair Gina Boyce-Rowe says Jennings has a deep understanding of the manufacturing and consumer goods sectors.

Crypto charge

The former boss of crypto exchange Mine Digital has appeared in Ipswich Magistrates Court charged with fraud. Grant Colthup, the ex-CEO of ACCE Australia faces one count of fraud following an ASIC investigation in connection with a $2.2 million cryptocurrency transaction in July 2022. ASIC says that between May 2019 and September 2022 ACCE operated a digital asset exchange platform and offered cryptocurrency trading services to customers under the name Mine Digital.

Former Mine Digital boss charged with fraud over Bitcoin deal.

The corporate watchdog alleges that a customer of Mine Digital paid $2.2 million to ACCE for Bitcoin but never received any cryptocurrency in exchange.

ASIC alleges that Colthup used the funds to pay the liabilities of ACCE or to purchase cryptocurrency for others. The matter was adjourned to December 16. The matter is being prosecuted by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions following a referral from ASIC. ACCE entered administration in September 2022 with Brad Tonks of PKF appointed liquidator in December of that year.

Rising star

Doug Tynan’s GCQ Funds Management has picked up a coveted “rising star’ award at the Zenith Fund Awards. Considered the Oscars of the fund management business, Tynan tells us there wasn’t a spare seat in the house at the sit down awards lunch attended by 400 industry folk at The Ivy Ballroom in Sydney last week. “It was a bit of a feather in our caps to win this one,” the Terrace old boy tells City Beat. “The rising star award is open to any fund across any asset class that has been opened in the last three years so it is quite a wide field.” The detail of the judging criteria is a closely guarded secret, but fund performance, innovation, and building business positioned for long term success are high on the list.

“We took the whole GCQ team along for the awards ceremony, and might even have snuck out for a couple of glasses of champagne later in the afternoon,” he says. GCQ chief executive David Symons accepted the award on behalf of GCQ.

Doug Tynan