Sir Bryan James Todd (8 September 1902 – 29 May 1987) was one of four brothers who built one of New Zealand's biggest industrial and commercial enterprises.
Charles worked at wool-scouring in Milton and gold-mining at Table Hill, Blue Spur and then Bendigo, all in Otago.
[5] By the 1920s three of Charles' four sons, Desmond, Bryan and Andrew, were running branches of the Todd Motor Company in Dunedin, Christchurch and Auckland, By 1934 Andrew Todd had moved to Wellington to run a new Petone plant assembling Hillman and Humber cars and commercial vehicles.
[6] The Mitsubishi franchise was acquired in 1970[7] when planning for New Zealand's biggest assembly plant was under way, and in 1975 Todd Park was opened at Porirua.
[8] Bryan Todd set the scene for the group's later diversification into a range of interests – which included oil distribution, refining, and exploration, natural gas, forestry, finance, aviation, ironsands export, and land and property development – when a 1929 Petrol price war in Christchurch saw supplies cut off to the Todd garages because the petrol companies were setting up their own tied garages selling only their own petroleum products.
[9] Bryan Todd decided expanding world sources had created an opportunity for a fourth company to market petroleum products in New Zealand.
[10] In August 1931 the Associated Motorists' Petrol Company (AMPCO) was formed with the support of automobile clubs with his father Charles Todd as chairman.
[11] By March 1933 bulk terminals had been built, a national retail network established and Europa petrol was on sale.
In 1954 it had acquired prospecting licences in the North and South Islands and entered joint venture exploration agreements with Shell and BP in 1955, 1956 and 1961.
Depending on various factors, Pan Eastern made a profit of 50c for every barrel of crude oil refined, or about 5c for every gallon of petrol Europa purchased.
Both bodies give annual support to medical research, youth organisations, cultural and educational groups, the elderly, disabled and handicapped and other worthy causes.