Broome’s Banfield family traded sheep and wheat for a different type of farming, and hasn’t looked back.
Many dynastic family businesses have maintained a consistent, albeit evolving, focus on a single field of endeavour during their decades of operation.
While many outsiders might view jewellery as the core to the Banfield family’s long-running business Willie Creek Pearls, it might be safer to say that Broome is the enduring feature of this dynasty.
Valda and Don Banfield had been farming near Narrogin since 1964 but left the property in 1985 and moved to Perth.
In what turned out to be a serendipitous turn of events, Mr Banfield, by that time working as a chauffeur, met Broome investor Lord McAlpine and decided the Kimberley was the place to be.
Along with his sons Robert and Darren, who had also been driving limousines in Perth, Mr Banfield shifted north to operate transport business Broome Buslines, in 1989, providing transfers to guests of the McAlpine-owned Cable Beach Club Resort and, later, coach tours throughout the Kimberley.
Tragically, Mr Banfield died in the same year that business started, leaving his widow and sons to do much of the foundational work.
Both of Don and Valda’s daughters now also work in the business, which is chaired by Robert, and several members of the third generation are active, too, including in management positions.
So, oddly for a family operation, much of the business’s formation has been shaped by the second generation from the outset.
While broader tour services may make a great deal of sense as a growth story for a transport company, the decision in 1994 to lease the Willie Creek Pearl Farm to add a new attraction to their business does appear to have radically changed the family’s focus.
Willie Creek Pearls now operates seven outlets, three in Broome and four in Perth, and has expanded its pearl farm leaseholds as well as launched a new tour boat to sustain that side of the business.
Perhaps more exotically, in terms of diversification, the family has also become a major shareholder in a medical technology startup called Marine Biomedical, which uses pearl shell material to create devices that mimic bone formation and can be used in surgical procedures.
Willie Creek Pearls chairman Robert Banfield sits on the Marine Biomedical board and represents the biggest shareholding in the startup, ahead of the company’s head of research Rui Ruan, The University of Western Australia and listed biotech Orthocell, whose co-founders Paul Anderson and Ming Hao Zheng are both also directors.
The Banfields also built a manufacturing facility from which Marine Biomedical operates in Broome.
The biotech’s health focus offers a very different path in diversifying the family business.
But as exciting as Mr Banfield says he finds this new venture, it is clear that the heart of the family’s enterprise is in the customer service-oriented parts of the operations.
He said the family ethos revolved around hard work and calculated risk taking when expanding into new fields.
“Customer service has always been part of our DNA and has proved to be a successful ingredient,” Mr Banfield told Business News.
“We appreciate our customers and do what we can to exceed their expectations of our business with them.”
In terms of investment, he said the family sought to understand the worst-case scenario for any opportunity.
If they were comfortable with that potential downside, then that was a risk worth taking.
A key area of recent growth has been in pearl farms, a move the Banfields have made to secure their future supply of South Sea Pearls, the variety native to the Kimberley.
“To ensure sustainable growth, we’ve recently expanded our operations with the establishment of a new pearl farm lease site at James Price Point, near Broome,” Mr Banfield said.
“This new site will assist in securing and increasing our internal pearl supply for years to come.
“Additionally, we’ve acquired a new pearling support vessel to accommodate the growing demands of commercial pearling. And we’ve seeded the largest number of shells in the company’s history over the past year."
The business has also expanded its online sales channels, having launched an updated website and online store as well as investing in social media marketing.
