Our family business dates back over 50 years

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Hi, this is me (Linda Brink) enjoying my fav holiday spot - the "Florida Keys"  which is about an hours drive from our office in Ft Lauderdale. 

This pic was taken just  before I relocated to NZ in Jan 2016 to import for distribution in the US, our inhouse "Tribal" branded, NZ tea tree oil, honey and tea agribiz based natural health products as retail shelf ready SKU's. An industry I knew well, having been in the Australian tea tree oil industry for nearly ten years from 1991 to 1999.

With the NZ tea tree agribiz production / value adding ecosystem now in place, upon my return I will be using our realty shop/office of 41 years as my US base for (1) the NZ agribiz sanctuary lifestyle investment products marketing (2) a "showcase" for "Tribal" products.

The sale of condos' in Ft Lauderdale with a few SFR's (Single Family Homes) and townhouses in the mix, has been the firms bread and butter from day one. All through a very outdated "retro" looking office that was such a turnoff to many of the firm's agents over the years, they preferred to work from home, meeting clients in coffee shops to avoid bringing them into an office that in a word , was professionally "embarrassing". 

In 2006, I returned to the US from SE Asia/Australia where I had been based for many years, having arranged with my mother to work towards an MBO of the family firm and expand the firm's business. For nearly four years, we worked together, setting up a new property management / short term holiday rentals division for yacht crews who wanted "luxury" after weeks at sea. Despite the MBO, my attempts as a broker-associate to "modernize" the firm kept running into a brick wall called mother,. Today the firm is moribund, in urgent need of a new direction. 

In keeping with my late father's  strategy, (Dirk Brink, an investment banker) a founding policy of the family firm was to own an income producing property portfolio that would lay the base for an active property ownership / management division that would grow as the town grew over the years. This policy has resulted in a multi-property portfolio which today includes highly valuable vacant residential lots, SFR's and condominiums. 

Upon my return, I will be reallocating this resource, focusing on increasing the ROI available from the portfolio. Realizing non-income producing properties such as highly valuable canal front land and upgrading properties where deferred maintenance issues have a detrimental impact on the ROI.

In the montage to the left, I illustrate four of the properties in the multimillion dollar portfolio.

One of the first things I did when I returned to Ft Lauderdale in 2006 was to tidy-up (1) the office (2) my mother's business appearance. The transformation of her appearance with the use of makeup was amazing. Next step was to design a logo that "told a story" and upgrade the office which had not seen a new coat of paint since 1982 with the office furniture looking like something that would be more appropriate to furnishing Noah's ark. Not a 20th century real estate office in the heart of a vibrant tourist destination. Undaunted, I passed my exams & signed the MBO needed to send mother & Robert off on a sabbatical to Italy, Roberts birth country.

This line of endeavor progressively morphed into an exercise in futility as a I progressively witnessed the impact of her autism, failing physical health and mental acumen that increasingly impaired her management decisions and their woeful, ongoing impact on the firm.

A retired navy shipyard engineer, Robert was a great guy who did so much for my mother. Like the shopping, doing all the maintenance work on the property portfolio, always paying for dinner when taking mother out. This pic was taken at his birthday party which I hosted in my condo where my mother showed great appreciation for my input, minus the makeup, again!

Of course, his "big buzz" was planning his sabbatical to the "old country" that was to follow my taking over the firm through a Management Buy Out. An agreement that took over two years to "assemble", but finally signed in August of 2008 when my partner relocated, bringing with him his US launch ready client portfolio and "Key Worker" lodging project.

Sadly, just three weeks later, the problems emerging in the FL real estate sector. exploded with the collapse of Lehman's. An event that had a profound effect on the MBO, frustrating its objectives.

Challenges with the FL real estate sector following the FL property crash post-Lehman's saw my relocation to San Jose, CA. in 2010. In May of 2015, noting the the success of the "Flow-Hive" crowdfunding campaign, the "Tribal" NZ tea tree Oil importing concept was born. Developing a launch plan, and left for NZ in 2016 to start the "Tribal" project.

Booked to fly back to Ft Lauderdale on March 25th 2020, to wrap things up with mother, this was shut down when the country's borders closed due to the Covid pandemic. Borders that did not reopen for travel between NZ and the US until May of 2022 during which year I made two trips back home to prepare for my launch.. While the two plus years of enforced delay was a challenging period for the firm, our family and ongoing ops / management of our property portfolio. this changes when I return and repurpose operations under the "Sanctum Stay" brand to include sanctuary agribiz lifestyle investments in NZ,