| The New South
Wales court case was started by Inglis in 1990 in response to Wrightsons supplying
pedigrees to a company running a sale in the protected states. At stake was the issue of
just what was in the original agreement and how enforceable it was. On the last day of the
trial, Wrightsons agreed to be bound by an injunction preventing them from supplying
pedigrees from their database for auction sales in Victoria and New South Wales. Although there was no restriction on a sale company producing
pedigrees by typing in all the details by hand, the practical effect of the injunction was
to make it enormously difficult for a competitor to program and run a sale in the two
major states.
In 1993, Inglis entered the Victorian market by taking over
the Dalgety Bloodstock business. Dalgety's parent company Dalgety Limited, had been
seriously weakened by the effects of the early 1990's recession and was groaning under a
mountain of debt. Major lender the ANZ Bank, became a 90% owner of Dalgety Limited and set
about selling it. Co-incidentally, ANZ was also banker to William Inglis and Son, which
had also been seriously affected by the recession.
It made good business sense for the ANZ to facilitate the
sale of Dalgety Bloodstock to William Inglis.
So Inglis was now the dominant thoroughbred sales company
in Australia's two largest markets. With the acquisition of Dalgety, it obtained
Australia's most modern sales complex at Oaklands Junction. It also obtained the only
other Australian pedigree database of any quality. However, this asset was quickly put out
to grass, as owning two such databases was hardly necessary.
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