1. pubacct.org.au 4746 February / March 2015February / March 2015
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F
ishing may be in Richard
Lethborg’s blood, but the
56-year old accountant never
expected to be negotiating
12-metre seas 4,000 kilometres
from the mainland, as part of his
CFO duties.
Nor did he ever expect to have
to deal with the logistics of an
Antarctic fishing crew with a sick
man aboard, the nearest hospital
closer to Africa than Australia, or
a boat having to engage the Furious
Fifties. But these are all scenarios
that have happened to the chief
financial officer of Launceston-
based fishing company Australian
Longline – life-and-death situations
reminiscent of the Hollywood movie
The Perfect Storm.
The reality of sending out crews
and organising their welfare for 28
weeks is not far removed from that
movie. Lethborg tells the story of
one crew caught in such a desperate
storm that their 1,140-tonne boat
simply could not climb over the
waves. “One wave they encountered
was so high that the boat slipped
backwards down the wave,” he
recalls. “The bottom of the boat was
submerged – but unlike the movie,
the skipper was able to keep the
boat upright. He later told me it
was a close call.”
One bite at success
Australian Longline is one of only
two Australian fishing companies
with a licence to fish the Patagonian
toothfish, a highly sought after
delicacy in restaurants from the
US to Singapore.
The fishing operation is a high-
risk, high-reward exercise, with
an accent on managing risk, says
Lethborg. While he has never been
a part of a crew, he has to know
exactly what is happening.
You only get one chance a year.
Extremely rough seas, the illness
or injury of a crew member or a
vessel breakdown could mean the
difference between profitability and
loss for an entire year. Rescuing a
distressed boat immediately impacts
the bottom line.
The company mainly fishes
around Heard Island and McDonald
Islands, a barren and rocky group of
islands about two-thirds of the way
from Madagascar to the Antarctic,
as well as Macquarie Island, located
halfway between Tasmania and the
Antarctic continent. Later this year,
it will send its first ever vessel to the
species-rich Ross Sea, a deep bay in
the Southern Ocean.
As Lethborg explains, getting the
business right means understanding
the laws of the sea.
“A boat costs a squillion dollars
a day to run, and the first 10 to
15 days are spent just getting there,”
he says. “The boat can still haul in
toothfish when the seas are as high
as 12.5 metres, but anything above
that is too rough.”
On that single, once-a-year
mission, the boat has to have
enough food, bait and fuel for
28 weeks. There is a constant and
delicate juggling act to maintain
vessel stability while allowing room
for food, fish offal, fuel storage and
freezing space.
Offal has to be dumped away
from the fishing grounds, which
loses a day of fishing. If you strike
it lucky, the trade-off of fuel for
product comes into the equation.
As Lethborg says: “I have to be
talking to them all the time.”
In the genes
While his position as CFO at
Australian Longline is his main role,
Lethborg is a freelancer who has
worked for a number of companies
both locally and interstate. He spent
12 years working with KPMG and
has been involved with companies
as diverse as SeaPak, Australian
Pulp and Paper Mills and the West
Tamar Council.
Fishing, however, remains close
to his heart, both professionally and
personally. His own interests include
scuba diving for abalone and fishing
for flathead in the Bass Strait – when
time permits.
“My uncle and cousins are
fishermen, and my grandfather was a
fisherman,” says Lethborg. “Fishing
definitely runs in the family.”
Regulatory challenges
The cruelty of the sea itself is not the
only obstacle that the company and
its CFO face. Another is illegal and
unregulated fishing, which threatens
to jeopardise the sustainability of
the industry. Australian Longline
demonstrates sustainability through
certification from the Marine
Stewardship Council (MSC) and
MSC ‘chain of custody’ from catch
to plate. Quotas for the fishery
are set internationally to ensure
Patagonian toothfish stocks remain
above 50 per cent of spawning
biomass over a 30-year projection.
Another difficulty for the
business is proving to the Australian
Taxation Office the bona fides of
international money transfers, which
are part and parcel of dealing with a
multinational crew and/or working
with boats from other countries.
“We have chartered vessels from
other countries – often New Zealand
– and we have to unload and process
in foreign ports,” says Lethborg.
“We have to prove the transactions
are all done on a commercial
basis. The ATO fears we might be
transferring profits from one country
to another. They are also wary of
money laundering.”
For Lethborg, negotiating all
these hurdles is just part of the job.
“Yes, of course it can be tough
working in this industry – we’re
in the spotlight,” he says. “But it’s
among the most exciting jobs I’ve
ever been involved with. I wouldn’t
have it any other way.”
“One wave … was so
high that the boat
slipped backwards
down the wave”
As his firm chases fishing hauls in the
Southern Ocean, Richard Lethborg FIPA
must juggle risks straight out of the movies.
HIGH-SEAS CFO Name: Richard Lethborg
Company: Australian Longline
IPA Status: FIPA
Location: Launceston
by Adam Courtenay