Mark Leslie: Pamū Landcorp CEO on the company's turnaround in profit

Pāmu, formerly Landcorp, is seeing a significant financial turnaround, having reported a net profit after tax of $120 million for the year ended June 2025, which will see it return a $15 million dividend.

It's a significant turn compared to last year's results, where the company posted a loss of $26 million.

Chief executive Mark Leslie says he's 'thrilled' to be reporting these results.

"It's great to post the result - but equally, I'm thrilled for all our people as well because there's a lot of people right through the organisation who work hard every day."

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from news Talk zed be
follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on
iHeartRadio Now.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Huge turnaround for Land Corp. Reporting a net profit after
tax of one hundred and twenty million dollars for the year.
That is up from a twenty six million dollar net
loss last year. This means the business is going to
pay the government a dividend of fifteen million dollars. Mark
Leslie's the chief executive and with us Hi, Mark.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Good evening, Heather you God be with you now.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
You sound as thrilled as I think that you are.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
I am, and it's great to post the result. But
equally I'm thrilled for all of our people as well,
because there's a a lot of people right through the
organization who work hard every day and many who do
the mahia on the farms every day. It's nice to
be able to acknowledge their hard work turning up and
producing some fantastic results.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
What's the secret to the turnaround? How'd you do this?

Speaker 3 (01:01):
I think it's it is something that we as a
team have been working on over the last few years.
It's a very new look the leadership group with some
few white heads in there as well, and just really
going back to some real good basics of farming and
farm management. So whether it's our livestock farms and just
start focusing on the core of landing percentages and things
like that, or our dairy units and focusing on cows

(01:24):
and condition and the likes. We've just really gone back
to those basics to get the core fundamentals right. And
the nice part of it that's gone with it is
actually getting some really good commodity prices, so that's helped
as part of that as well. And I think you're
saying where were I suppose a we're a good signal
of where the agriculture sector is at at the moment
in a pretty good heart.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
What have you ditched?

Speaker 3 (01:44):
We've had We've had to make some few tough calls.
So with Palmer Foods, which was our venture into selling
products beyond the farm gate, we had a tough call
on that about eighteen months and closed some of that down.
We've consolidated some leadership roles and taken some overheads out.
There was a number of when I started, there was
probably one hundred plus little trials right across the farm,

(02:05):
across all of our farms and they were each in
their own right it were interesting, but they were probably
an element of distraction as well. So we've simplified and
stripped some of those things back and then allow us
us to focus on those core things that farmers need
to do every day.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
What kind of.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Stuff was Palmu food selling?

Speaker 3 (02:22):
So Palmu Foods was selling milk powder, bulk milk powder
out into the international market. So yeah, that was at
a time I suppose in the past where the business
was looking to divers diversify its incomes trains, and so
that was established and hey, you ended up competing with
some of the very large processes out in New Zealand.
And the call was we made the call that that

(02:44):
was our core business and go back to where we
can fundamentally make it different.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
And what about these trials? What was the most ambitious
of the trials?

Speaker 3 (02:52):
There was a number of them. There was there was
technology trials looking at condition scoring cows and the likes
and and many of them will have their day and
they will come to fruition. So but we've gone back
and said, hey, let's look at those. We don't need
to be at the bleeding edge of some of those technologies.
We've continued some of the areas with jetts and dairy
beef and where we believe we've got some real skills,

(03:14):
so we're focused back on those because they will drive
our core performance.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, are you still doing the deer milking?

Speaker 3 (03:20):
Yep, we are still looking at it. Well. We are
still doubt selling deer products as we speak, and we've
got really strong consumer demand coming out of Southeast Asia.
It's a very very small part of our business, so
my focus is on the bigger part, but we've kept
that going. It's a nice compliment to our large dear business.
We have a very large dear business across the rest
of the network.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
So do you reckon you've put the brakes by delivering
a result like this and then also talking about, you know,
maybe even increasing it through to twenty thirty in the
next five years. Do you reckon you've put the brakes
on the government selling off bits of you.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
I've always been pretty clear on that that's a decision
for the government of the day, but also a that
I've also seen it does have some complexities with it
as well. There is a number of those farms that
are still subject to treaty sentiment settlements. As a number
that are leased, there's a number of it. They've got
first right of refusal, so that that has some complexity.
That's a decision for the government of the day. The
that I can keep doing is what we've just been

(04:13):
talking about is delivering some fantastic results and playing a
dividend back to the crown.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, good stuff, Mark, keep it up. Thank you, Mark Leslie,
Chief executive of Land carp

Speaker 1 (04:21):
For more from News Talk st B, listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio.