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Embattled childcare tycoon Eddy Groves says his life is "a whole new ballgame", with his focus on family and lifestyle rather than life in the fast lane.
In his first public comments since his childcare empire came crashing down, the 42-year-old Brisbane businessman &em; who says he always hated the "Fast Eddy" tag &em; revealed he enjoyed being dumped from Australia's Rich List.
He warned other businessmen to take a breather and find a balance in their working life, but he vowed to rebuild ABC Learning Centres, where he is still chief executive officer, and take fewer risks in a debt market he described as frightening.
"What's happened to me, I got out of it with holes in my pants, but I got out with my pants on," Mr Groves said. "I don't have a share (remaining) in ABC, but I didn't lose the roof over my head &em; that's tangible. A share is not tangible.
"What is tangible is your belief and your love and your passion for the people you work for."
In a speech behind closed doors to the Pharmacy Guild of Australia annual conference on the Gold Coast last month, Mr Groves said it had taken 20 years for him to learn a valuable lesson.
"As you have those entrepreneurial juices flowing, remember that there's a lifestyle, and there's a family and there's all these other aspirations you have," he said.
When Mr Groves was interviewed by The Sunday Mail for its Rich List last year, he was living on the Gold Coast, repeatedly juggling six weeks in Australia then three weeks in the US as he expanded his empire.
He travelled in a $7.5 million Cessna jet, drove a top-of-the-range BMW and had a $700,000 Ferrari. He owned the Brisbane Bullets basketball team (a position he is quitting).
But a horror start to the year saw the stockmarket crash rip 70 per cent off the value of his company and wipe out $250 million of his own fortune.
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The Brisbane business rumour mill has linked Mr Groves with Viryan Collins-Rubie, a chief executive with the private business Childcare Providers.
Mr Groves, who was a regular at Palazzo Versace, has not been spotted around the exclusive hotel and restaurant precinct on the Gold Coast in recent weeks.
He is still angry about the damage caused by the stock market fall-out to a business which he and Le Neve had built up to 1000 childcare centres since 1988.
"A fundamentally good business changed dramatically because of rumour and innuendo," Mr Groves said.
"Am I upset about that? I am, because of all the other shareholders.
"Am I upset about that for me? The fact that the Rich 200 list came out and I'm not on it? Thank God. Because that was the price of freedom . . . an enormous weight came off my shoulders."
Hundreds of delegates who listened to his private speech on March 29 gave him a standing ovation. They had paid up to $620 for the three-day conference.
Mr Groves had topped the BRW Young Rich List in 2006 when his wealth reached $260 million.
The 42-year-old former milkman and Le Neve were worth $214 million last year, but he dropped off the latest list last month after ABC suffered a $760 million meltdown on the stock market in February.
He explained that finding the balance for him now was not only in lifestyle but to ensure that ABC remained stable: "I'm going to de-leverage it and de-risk it come hell or high water because the debt markets right now are scary.
"But the pressure's off and now I can just run the greatest business that I love with the greatest people in the world."
Mr Groves declined to comment to The Sunday Mail or release a full copy of his speech delivered at the conference at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre.
A spokesman for The Pharmacy Guild of Australia said Mr Groves had allegedly issued a memo to the organisation asking that no one talk to the media about his speech: "He wants it to be kept just within the conference's circle."
But a Brisbane City pharmacist who attended the conference said delegates were "blown away" by Mr Groves after his "honest and open-hearted insight" into the ABC collapse.
- reprinted from NEWS.com.au