In his heyday the Perth-based Bond was one of Australia's most prominent businesspeople. He extended his business interests into fields outside property development including brewing (he controlled Castlemaine Tooheys in Australia, leading the business to legal success in the landmark constitutional law case of "Castlemaine Tooheys Ltd v South Australia", and G. Heileman Brewing Company in La Crosse, Wisconsin, US), gold mining, television, and airships. Australia's first private university, Bond University, was founded by the Bond Corporation in 1987. He purchased QTQ-9 Brisbane and settled an outstanding defamation dispute the station had with the Queensland premier, Joh Bjelke-Petersen by paying out A$400,000. He said in a television interview several years later that he paid because "Sir Joh left no doubt that if we were going to continue to do business successfully in Queensland then he expected the matter to be resolved".