Back in 1974, a group of 17 Western Australian Golden Fleece service station owners came together to develop a plan to gain better value for their automotive parts purchases and to improve their business profitability.
Little would these forward-thinking small business owners realised that in doing this, they had planted the seeds of what would become Capricorn – Australia and New Zealand’s largest automotive cooperative.
From little things…
There have been many defining moments in the history of the Capricorn Society, ranging from its humble establishment in the 1970s, to becoming a bi-nation cooperative organisation that reached $500 million in sales at the dawn of the new millennium, to becoming one of the world’s leading cooperative organisations with sales of over $1 billion in Australia and New Zealand by its fourth decade.
This year marks the 50th Anniversary of Capricorn, which has continued to grow from strength to strength reaching over 28,000 automotive service Member businesses and including more than 2,000 Preferred Suppliers. Working together, they generated an astounding $3.4 billion in sales last year alone, making Capricorn one of Australia’s most outstanding business success stories.
The first Capricorn General Manager and one of the original Golden Fleece service station owners who established this cooperative, Frank O’Connor, said that everything that Capricorn does is purpose driven for the continued success of its Members.
“As service station owners in the early days, we attended a training session about building a better business and one of the topics was called ‘how to buy better’,” he said. “So a group of us discussed how much we were paying for certain automotive parts and we quickly established that by working together we could gain far better value for the parts that we were frequently purchasing. “Soon some of us became specialised in certain auto parts, I became the sealed beam headlight person. We continued this with more auto parts and it was the former lighting company Lucas that was the first to approach us, offering a five per cent discount if we established a single point for our group orders and invoicing.
“That is how it all started and from that point it became all about finding more suppliers and more members, a process that continues to this day, 50 years later.”
Fuelled up
The growth of Capricorn’s membership continued at a steady pace through to the new millennium, when accelerated growth took place.
Now Capricorn is proud to offer its Members a range of competitive financial services products, as well as access to risk protection, exclusive industry events and a generous Capricorn Rewards Program.
This 50th Anniversary year also coincides with the conclusion of the highly successful career of long-term Capricorn Group Chief Executive Officer David Fraser.
David’s 18 years at Capricorn started with his appointment as General Manager – Automotive, working together with former Group CEO Greg Wall, the duo largely responsible for Capricorn’s incredible growth over the past decade.
David became Group CEO in 2019 and ends his highly successful tenure at Capricorn at the end of the year.
“Capricorn has created a community within the automotive industry that extends beyond business relationships,” David said.
“There have been many good times along with several challenges that our community has faced over the years and throughout it all, Capricorn has never lost sight of our purpose – to help and support our Members to become stronger businesses.
“The vision of the original 17 remains as Capricorn’s purpose today, a commitment to working together and understanding the benefits of strength in numbers.”
Visit here and keep an eye on our Facebook and LinkedIn to meet those who make up the Capricorn community and help us celebrate 50 Years Strong