July 3, 2024 • 31 mins
Briscoes Group managing director and majority owner Rod Duke shares his best and worst money stories with Liam Dann.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Madama.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hi, I'm Liam Dan, New Zealand Herald Business Editor at Large,
and welcome to this episode of Money Talks. This is
a podcast about money, but we're not going to tell
you how to get rich, and we're not going to
try and pick the next interest rate move. In this series,
I'll be talking to interesting New Zealanders about how money
has shaped their lives and what they've learned over the years.
(00:29):
For today's podcast, I'm joined by Brisco's owner and managing director,
Rod Duke Cua.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Rod, Welcome to Money Talks afternoon.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Before we jump into some of the Money Talks questions,
I was actually looking right back. I think I first
interviewed you so long ago. I couldn't find it on
the internet, so about twenty three years ago, I reckon
I went to the Morning Side place and you were
still based there, and you know, you talked up the
game plan for Brisco's. You'd had it a while. But
I was just thinking, when you look back at what's
(01:00):
happened to retail in those twenty three years, with the
Internet and everything, it's almost like it's incredible, isn't it.
The odds were stacked against you to come this far.
Did you feel like that or no.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
We were always pretty confident. Yeah, at the end of
the day. Back in those days, we were twelve stores,
twenty million revenue in the beginning, losing a couple of
million a year, and there were some big power for
groups out there at that time. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
I mean, the warehouse was at the top of its
game at that point. But you somehow negotiated your way
through all that online retailing to find a sort of
like a place in the hearts of New Zealanders for
real stores.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
I guess, yeah, yeah, we did. Well.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Look, I'll talk a bit more about that side of
the business and what you do there, but I just
want to go right back, because Money Talks is about
sort of your relationship with money and just wondering what
your first memories of holding money in your hand would
have been.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
My first memories are are still very vivid in my mind.
I guess about ten or twelve years old. My far
was a bookmaker at the horse racing right in Adelaide,
And as is typical, a bookmaker fields at the races
on Saturday and then when he wakes up Sunday morning,
(02:14):
he gets his betting bags empties all the money hopefully
there's a lot empties the money on the floor, and
says to the kids, you better count it. Wow, I
want the notes sort it this way, and there's a
rubber band that you put around them, and all the
silver he sought this way, and then if you sort it,
(02:35):
then I'll come down and I'll count it out and
put it away. And so there are and I'm back
in an hour or two.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Kids, So it's all cash. In those days, it must
have been a pretty decent wack of piles of money
you're dealing with.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
There was some substantial around amounts of money. Fortunately for Dad,
most times there was a bit of money there, yeah,
but sometimes there was a little less.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Sometimes you lose. I guess when you're the book making
it was.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
A couple of gold watchers and.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, do you think that sort of influenced your understanding
of money and your your your your sense of value
of it and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Well, look, probably, probably, But my earliest memories of getting
into the business was more about I was just fascinated
by the proposition of buying something and then reselling it
for more.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Than I pay for it, right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
They were my biggest memories.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, I mean, did you actually get pocket money for
helping your dad out there and like all that money
but you've got a bit of pocket money.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Yeah, we needed to work for it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
And when you were a kid with the things that
you were, you know you wanted the money for. Was
it you know, saving up for things?
Speaker 1 (03:44):
It was all about the accumulation of money, right yeah? Yeah? Yeah,
and the two bubb a week, you know, you don't
you don't get a lot after a year. Yeah, you
watched a lot of cars, but I guess you know,
that was all part of growing up back in those days.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah. Yeah, So it wasn't like you were specifically saving things.
You actually could see the value of accumulating early on,
because I guess a lot of you know, some kids
just some people never see that in their whole life.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
What about it school? Did you see school as a
path to sort of more money or do you academically inclined?
Speaker 1 (04:19):
No? I was a very unusual adolescent, not particularly keen
on school except for the sporting part of it. Yeah yeah,
but no, for me, it was all about, you know,
preparing myself for the workforce and just dying to get
into a shop and learn how to approach and sell
(04:43):
to people, how to buy something from an amount of
money and then sell it for a little more. Yeah,
it was all about getting experienced from me.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Yeah, so you want to you wanted to do it.
You didn't sort of think, oh, I want to go
off and do a commerce degree or an accounting degree
or anything like that. What was the sport that you
were keen on ossie rules? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeahru was and cricket, and that you went bound for
a career in either of those, no, regrettably. Yeah. So
were you sort of basically keen to get out of
(05:11):
school as soon as you could? Did you? Did you
leave early or when?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Did you know? I left at the prescribed time? So
I finished a year of schooling. I turned sixteen very
quickly thereafter my birthdays in January, and I finished. I
finished then and had my first job before the end
of January of that same year.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Right, yeah, And so what was your first job?
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Working in a shoe shop? Selling? Selling shoes?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yep, And so sales, sales was what you're keen on.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Right, It's a it's a natural starting point. So if
you've got a retail career and you're a sixteen year old,
you never get into buying at that particular st Yeah. Yeah,
if you're clever and you can count properly, then you
might get into a buying office where you can do
(06:02):
ledges and estimates of sales and budgets and those sorts
of things. But that wasn't me. I had to start
at the very very bottom of that ladder.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
And do you think you had a natural aptitude for sales?
I mean, like, is it something you think you learn
or are you were born with it? Because some people
have an ability to sell and some people sort of
shy away from it, find too shy or something.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
I've always been very, very gregarious, so I relate, I
think pretty well to people. I had no trouble selling
to customers, and I felt very very comfortable about it.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah yeah, I mean in those days, I guess, I guess,
like shoe shops, people are coming for the shoes, so
it's more straightforward. But did you get in you know,
you went through other sales jobs where you had to
push a bit harder and twiss people's arms and things
like that.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah. Yeah, I went from a sixteen year old selling
shoes through to store management. Through to major appliances. I
had nine ten or eighteen or nineteen. I was selling
major appliances that there's television's refrigerators, and so you're selling
to very very similar people. You're just selling them a
(07:10):
bigger package.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
I sort of asked this question sometimes later on, But
you know, it obviously is about acquiring money. But at
some point, you know, is it a goal you knows
some sort of payoff to making the sale a sort
of like sports or something. Do you sort of get
a high from the selling?
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I think for me, I set a lot of targets
for myself, and so my target at the shoe shop
was to sell more shoes and more accessories. You sell
more shoe laces, right, yeah, shoe every time you sell
the shoe. Not just about selling the shoes.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
You know, those are the extras.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, we'll get another ten percent if in fact you
sell the dream of keeping the shoes clean and tidy.
And in major appliances, it was all about selling extras.
Is service contracts, all those sorts of things.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah, and I'm jumping around a bit, but obviously one
of the successes of Briscoes is finding that that point
where people you know that there's a point that people
really relate to that store for the right quality goods
at the right price, all that sort of stuff. You do,
You feel like you sort of learned that on the
job in those early years.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
When I first came to New Zealand and purchase Briscoes.
We had to establish very very quickly what segment of
the market we want to sit in, because the segment
that we're in was unsustainable. Yeah, there were too many incumbents.
They were very very good, They are very very big,
(08:44):
and they are very very powerful, and so we had
to find a niche in that landscape. And that landscape
was two dollars shops all the way through to department stores. Yeah,
we had to find a piece of that landscape that
we thought we could settle in, we could own, and
we could easily defend, because once you become successful, the
(09:07):
barriers to entry for entry are not high, and so
you have to find a way of defending that piece
of real estate.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Just recapping that, that purchase of Briscoes. You were an
Australian based executive at that point, right, and you'd been
brought in basically to fix up Briscoes for the Dutch
owners or.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Something, yes, and to sell it.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Yeah, So you could you tell us a bit about
how that process worked and what made you what made
you decide hang on, I think I want to own
this rather than do it for someone else.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yeah. I arrived in New Zealand in September nineteen eighty eight,
and one of the very very first things that we
did we sat down with the primary group of management then,
which was about a dozen people. We sat down with
them and just establish what segment of the market we
wanted to stablished ourselves in That particular segment was high
(10:03):
quality product but a real good price. No one occupied
that space. There was high quality product but quite expensive.
There was very very very very cheap, poor quality stuff
and real cheap, but not a lot in between. So
that was the space that we wanted to occupy, and
so we set about doing that. So we set about
acquiring brands, brand name, merchant, merchandise, and we because we
(10:27):
weren't in shopping malls, we had to promote it very,
very heavily because back in those days, people in New Zealand,
or customers in New Zealand had almost forgotten about us. Yeah,
we've been in business since eighteen sixty but they've forgotten
about us. There were a lot more important retailers doing
a lot of businesses at that point, so that was
(10:50):
our task.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Did you have a marketing background, because there was some
kind of like there's the sort of iconic Brisco's lady.
It's Tammy, is that right?
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Yeah, I mean, can you tell me about how she
got involved and how you got that sort of that
brand recognition going.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
For the first three or four months from that September
right through to Christmas, we'd done loud in your face,
high discount get into the store, right ads. That was
never going to last forever, and we needed a face,
a iconic face that I could use for a very
(11:26):
long time, that projected and showed folks the value of
my brand. We did a whole lot of interviews and
Tammy came through very very strong. We tested her in
the market that also came through very very strong, and
here we are.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
It was a good call because she's really resonated with
the New Zealand public.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Right Yeah. And she's lasted a very very very long
time and she's been she's been an important part of
our team.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah. So I mean there's a lot going on there
with creating a brand, marketing and all that sort of stuff.
Is there a leap that you made from you know,
you're working your way from the shoe sales and you're
doing appliances. But what was the leap that you made
to get into more of a as you say, like
doing the buying as well as the selling, and more
of an executive type role.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Yeah. Well I had a number of those in Australia
before I came to newsk So in Australia, the last
job I had over there was the managing director of
Norman Ross, which was the forerunner of Harvey Norman, and
that was more a fix and get back on its
feet job immediately prior to ours, with a department store
chain in Sydney. So my background in retail had been
(12:40):
all the way from a sixteen year old in a
shoe shop, all the way through to a senior mitchell
a director role inside retail, and all the time being
in retail. So I think I'd really passed or served
as at each of those touch points all the way through.
So by the time I came to New Zealand, I
(13:02):
was already familiar with what might be required to fix
an organization didn't have that many problems but to fix it.
So I'd already pretty well done in Australia, which was
quite a different market to New Zealand at that point.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Sure, and so the sorts of things that I did
there turned out to work pretty well here in this country. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
I mean, I guess what I'm getting at though, is
like you didn't need to go back and do an
MBA or anything like any of this executive accounting stuff.
You must have kept learning all the way through, right,
just learning based on solving problems as you win. Kind
of thing, was it.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Look, you learn a lot in each of the roles
that you fulfilled. In the early roles, you're learning about
people and what it takes to sell. In the middle roles,
you're learning about the value of inventory, the value of promotions,
what turns people on, what makes people get out of
(13:56):
their lounge chair and run to your store and buy something?
What did that take? Yeah, you know it's not just price.
The price is a serious motivator, but it's not just price.
And so you're learning all that way, all the way
through to today. You know, you're learning about the text implications,
the depreciation, the value of owning stores rather than renting
(14:18):
them or renting them at the right price.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
So you're learning because any different body management all sorts
of things going on right.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Yes, And it's not just about making sales. You've got
to make sales, You've got to make margin. It's all
about going to factories all over the world and buying
at the right price. As you buy at the right
price at the very very beginning. It's very, very hard
to sell at the right price if you have not
bought at the right price.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
And what about rebel rebel sport, Where did that idea
come from? Obviously that's found a niche as well. That's
really stuck in the retail landscape of New Zealand.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Yeah, I've been encouraged by our banker back at about
ninety four, nineteen ninety four to ninety five, because we
weren't borrowing any money, to try and borrow some money.
So it appeared to me that perhaps I should look
at establishing or purchasing another business. So I got bolted
onto the business I had. I was a tennis player
(15:12):
back in those days, and my dear friend who I
just finished playing tennis with, I said to him Stewart,
I need to buy a racket and some shoes and
pants and one have you. Where do I go? He said, well,
you're going to have to go to about six or
seven stores, because not everybody sold. Some sold rackets, and
some sold shorts and some sold shoes. So I said
(15:33):
to him, how about how about if I set up
a sporting good store to sold everything, every brand, all
those things in the one store. How would that go?
And he said to me, I think it go pretty good. Yeah,
And so that's where the dream of Rebel started. We
found a brand name that we liked, we found some
(15:54):
people in Australia who could assist us putting it together,
which we did, and we opened their first store in
September nineteen ninety six, and the rest is ssstory.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, it's interesting because it's a big step to take.
But in the same token you've talked about, you've never
gotten into trouble over expanding like that, which can be
a risk when you have some success, right you see
businesses do that all the time and they take on
too much debt and then you have a downturn like
we've got now and you're exposed on cash flow and whatnot.
Do you sort of see yourself as a risk averse
(16:26):
on debt clearly, clearly yesh relative to other.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Yeah, But at the same time, I don't see that
we've ever taken, you know, real risks, serious risks. During
the GFC eight we slowed expansion down. So instead what
we did we went behind the business and put in
a multimillion dollar SAP financial and merchandise system, right, and
(16:56):
that took us two years to get that up, so
that by the we've come out of GFC, I had
this fully established, and so we now knew all about
our business down to light item to every dollar that
we spent. We spent four or five million dollars putting
it up, and suddenly we came out of GFC and
(17:17):
we were running, and we were running even faster and
knowing more about our business because we've made this significant
investment over this very very lean period of the GC And.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
That's kind of seeing the counter cyclical, isn't it being
able to time it?
Speaker 1 (17:35):
And quite frankly, that's what we're doing exactly now. We've
just committed to a one hundred million dollar brand new
DC facility, which we're doing now as we speak.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
On that project, I wanted to ask you a little
bit about how you feel, you know, Officer of New
Zealand Order of Merit. I guess you would say at
that point you're a New Zealander, but you're also in
Australian and I wondered how you feel about New Zealand
and the comparisons doing business and you know, I just
we tend to be a bit down on ourselves, especially
at the moment looking across the Tasman, and I wondered
(18:06):
how you felt about that New Zealand sort of business
world generally.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Look, I came over here in nineteen eighty eight having
spent my entire working life in Australia. When I arrived
in this country, there were a lot of things that
we did in Australia that we didn't do in this country.
And a lot of the things that brisk goes up
and running very very very very quickly. For example, Sunday trading. Yeah,
Sunday trading was illegal in this country. So we did
(18:35):
some homework, found out how illegal it is, how we're
going to get caught, and find if we were to
be who were the victims. Did the general public really
want it? Well they did, and we did it orbit illegally,
but we were writing a month's turnover in a day. Wow. Yeah,
(18:56):
And we did it for six weeks on our own
before the government made illegal and.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Then the law change. Then you're up and running already, So.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
That's I'm up and running.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Do you think there's much of a
character difference doing business? You know, like New Zealand is
that different to Australians. I mean Australia was more advanced
in the retail and probably up with some more of
the American innovations and things when you arrived, right, But.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Yeah, well Australia was certainly more when I came to
New Zealand. I can best characterize it has been doing
business perhaps a decade before. The sorts of things we
used to do in Sydney were still being done here,
things like we were still taking checks. Yeah yeah, it
takes checks, but they were still doing it here, so
(19:37):
we had to do it. I had a lot of
the innovative things that we do we did through the
media in Australia. We're not being done here. So we
introduced all those very very very very quickly. Because that
was my background, that's all I knew, and as a
consequence it success moved very very quickly.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yeah, got a few quick fire questions that we run
through and just off the top of your head. So
one of them is, what would you say the poorest
you've ever been?
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Is? Oh, gee, I guess, I guess when I first
started work at sixteen years old. Yeah, yeah, I made
the decision to go out and get a flat with
three mates.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Were your parents happy about that?
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Well?
Speaker 2 (20:20):
There were in those days. Is maybe it was?
Speaker 1 (20:21):
That was it? Well, they probably weren't happy. Yeah, but
at the end of the day, Look, I just craved
for independence and so so I did. And I back
in those days, I don't know what I was earning
sixty five dollars a week and there was not a
lot left over, so you had to sell it. I
had to sell, I had to sell quickly.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
And well yeah, yeah, do you remember a point in
those early days where you suddenly realized you did have
a few dollars in your pocket that you felt like
you were getting on top of it, you know? And
if so, what sort of did you splash out on
and those sort of things.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Yeah. I have worked at Brisco's with a colleague and
he was there ten years before I was, and he
was the CFO, and he's just recently retired. And I
remember one day having been at Brisco's probably for seven
or eight years, and I said to him, I think
(21:12):
I think we've made a fair bit of money, you know,
And he said yeah, he said, Look, you'll be read
in there now. He says that, right. There was never
a goal. It was never something that you ever think of.
I said to you a little earlier. You know, I'm
more about for me, I'm all about setting targets. My
targets were to have more stores, to have a high volume,
(21:38):
to have more profitable stores. It was those sorts of things.
It was never about for me. It's not who's got
the most toys, who's got the most money?
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Yeah, a number in the bank account. I mean, I
guess there's a once you go into business like that,
you're constantly chasing the best business deal, the best structure,
you can arrange, all that sort of stuff. We're just
doing business.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Yeah, there is that, But also the fear of bankruptcy,
right yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah, you've got a lot of people who work for you,
and you know you're responsible for a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Well, there's there's that as well. You know, I can
remember earlier when I when I did purchase the business.
You know, I trotted along to a lot of banks,
and the final one that agreed to give me trading
finance made me sign a personal guarantee for thirty five million.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Well yeah, easy getting loans in those days either was it.
That wasn't, especially in this country.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
It wasn't, but they did it. Yeah. You know, so
I'm a thirty eight year old got this, got a
plan that I've got a planned Yeah, and I got
a thirty eight million to an overdraft. Wow. Yeah. You
don't survive unless you succeed.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Yeah, And I guess that kind of that sort of
instills a bit of fear of failure. You know, you've
when you've got to overdraft that size.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Or yeah, or some people sometimes some people sit down
and then success actually drives them on. Yeah, other people
that the fear of failure drives themond.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
But something both are going because you could you know,
you could have sold out ten twenty years ago or whatever,
and you probably had a house and a batch and
you know, so something you must love doing business.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
I can't begin to imagine what I would do if
I didn't have the responsibility of a business that I
basically gave birth to.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah, yeah, and so so I guess that's a sort
of a satisfaction type thing. The other other hobbies that
you have.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Look, I like playing golf. I like running around the world,
touring around the world ye with my beautiful wife and
my good mates. Yep. I like nice wine.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
I like socializing the things.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
What about if I asked as what would you say
the most indulgent purchase you'd ever.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Made outside of a house that a came in out? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Yeah, something that you splashed out on yourself.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
For oh myself, I don't know, Probably probably not very much.
I bought myself three new suits when I was away, right, yeah,
four weeks ago. Yeah. I don't spend a lot of
money on myself. I love buying a thousand doll a
bottle of wine for a bunch of mates overseas.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
So you can splash out when you for the experiences.
Yeah yeah, yeah, Well that's something in itself, isn't it,
The ability to do that. I love making occasions, memories,
that sort of thing. You probably aren't in charge of this,
but we've been asking because our promised Christopher Luxen was
asked on the campaign trail how much he spent on
(24:43):
groceries during a week, and he said sixty dollars because
he was talking about his coffee and whatnot in his
flat and Wellington, I think, but do you have any
budget for the grocery shopping? Are you in charge of
any of that? We trust your wife.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Yeah, not my department.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Fair enough. We often ask there was a big lotto
draw recently. Do you still buy a lotto tickets? Do
you ever?
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Did you?
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Did you ever?
Speaker 1 (25:07):
I have probably bought six in my entire life. Yeah.
The odds are the odds are too great.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Yeah. What about did you with your you know, outbringing
with your dad, did you get a bug for betting
on the horses or anything like that?
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Yeah? I do a bit of that. I do a
bit of that. Yeah, that's that's one thing I have bought.
I bought race horses.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Oh I suppose that's that's a hobby.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Yeah, that's a hobby. That's expensive hobby. But it can be, Yeah,
it can be. But it can be a lot of
fun as well.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Yeah, and it can actually be a good investment sometimes too, right,
So it's not totally not often. Oh, well, you know
that that's an exciting thing to be involved with. So
you can be betting on a horse that you've actually
got a real stake in, right.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, when not so long ago we ran second in
the Melbourne Cup.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Wow, Yeah, so that's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yeah, well that is that's that's that's that's a big thrill.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeah, that's something that would you know when you think
think back to your dad being a bookie, he must
have been be quite impressed with that. We've sort of
touched on. Yeah, making money important to here or is
it a byproduct of success? It sounds like it primarily
is a byproduct of success.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Look, I think it's is byproduct, but for me it's not.
It's not a real motivator making making money for the
business so I can support the two thousand families who
work in the business. Yeah, now that's now that's a
bit of fun. Yeah. And COVID recently with the lockdowns
that tested us enormously, but that was a lot of
(26:28):
fun to get through that survive that come out a
very very much stronger business. Yeah, you know that that
was a that was a bit of fun looking back,
and it was a lot of fun then. But it's
a lot of fun looking back on it.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah, I won't. I won't go massively into the business
side of things right now, but you feel comfortable that
you're doing all right. There's a lot of gloom out
there in the economy, and we've seen you know, Smith
and Coe's and sort of a lot of retailers talking
about how rough it is, you know it is. Do
you feel you've got a sort of a very robust
structure there to get through this sort of cycle.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
That we're in a glamorous position that for the last
thirty five years we've saved a lot of money. We
haven't borrowed any money from a bank for twenty five years,
so we're cash riche we're not indebted.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yeah, which is pretty crucial at a time like this.
It's the guys who've got big debts that are.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Exactly We've got spectacular staff. We've looked after them all
through COVID. Look, make no mistake, it's tough. It's very, very,
very tough in the suburbs. And look, I'm not going
to have a record year in terms of profit, but
we're going to go right. Yeah, we'll go right.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
And I guess you way up. Whether you're expanding now
or whether you're just hungering down.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
To the couple of things you put on hold until
it gets better. Sometimes you spend a lot of money
when it's tough because you know you're going to come
out of it. Yeah, I just can't tell you whether
it's going to be at the end of this year
or next year. But no, that's right, come through it.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Yeah, the cycle will turn and the strongest will survive.
On that sort of broader economic stuff, if there was
something that you could change in New Zealand to sort
of improve their country's economy or all that sort of stuff,
you know, if we can make your Prime minister for
a day, is there something that you would want to
see put your focus on to change the absolutely settings
in New Zealand?
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah, yeah, I'd be looking at the education system. Yeah, yeah,
I think the education system right now in this country
is absolutely appalling.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Yeah, I mean there's a lot of talk that it's
kind of been let slide. So what would you like
to see?
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Just look, I'd like to see just the return to basics.
I'd like to see for probably high school beyond primary school,
you know, some focus on economics, on budgeting, on those
sorts of things to teach kids' life skills, you know,
And I just don't. I just don't see that it's
(28:52):
happening right now. Now. I'm not an expert on the
education system. My land has gone through that now. He's
twenty seven, twenty eight years old, so yeah, you know,
he's been out of it for probably several eight years now.
But everyone you talk to who has kids of that
that age, you know, tell me that the system is
(29:12):
just in ruins.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah, and kids not really having coming out with a
sense of Yeah, like you say, the sense of financial literacy,
isn't it really? Which I guess you've got almost a
better start in that with like your dad and the money.
You know, you know, the value of a dollar is
an important thing to learn quite early on, right.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Yeah. But even back then, you know, I could, I
could tell my seven times table, and you understood the
basics of mathematics. I knew how to write. Yeah. I'm
not sure that a lot of kids these days are
even getting that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah, And if someone hands you a note, you know
what change to give them back?
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Yeah. I don't think it's complicated, but it certainly needs
some Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
So just to wrap up, what then. I know we
talked about it being a tough economy, but do you
still have plans and vision for Risco and Rebelsport the brands.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
You know, it's it's not over. Yeah, we've got some
big plans coming up. We're looking to expand the business.
We're looking to acquire or establish a bigger business. This
business has a lot of capacity, a fabulous trading platform
and we think we don't think we're we need the
(30:31):
end of expansion yet.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
That's great, Rod, We'll leave it there. Thanks for being
on Money Talks. Thank you mate, Thanks for listening to
this episode of Money Talks. If you want to get
in touch, drop me a line at Liam dot Dan
at nzmeet dot co dot nz and you can read
more from me at zidherld dot co dot nz. Thanks
to my producer Ethan sills can sound engineer LeAnn McDonald.
(30:55):
Follow Money Talks on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts,
with new few episodes available every Thursday.
Madama.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hi, I'm Liam Dan, New Zealand Herald Business Editor at Large,
and welcome to this episode of Money Talks. This is
a podcast about money, but we're not going to tell
you how to get rich, and we're not going to
try and pick the next interest rate move. In this series,
I'll be talking to interesting New Zealanders about how money
has shaped their lives and what they've learned over the years.
(00:29):
For today's podcast, I'm joined by Brisco's owner and managing director,
Rod Duke Cua.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Rod, Welcome to Money Talks afternoon.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Before we jump into some of the Money Talks questions,
I was actually looking right back. I think I first
interviewed you so long ago. I couldn't find it on
the internet, so about twenty three years ago, I reckon
I went to the Morning Side place and you were
still based there, and you know, you talked up the
game plan for Brisco's. You'd had it a while. But
I was just thinking, when you look back at what's
(01:00):
happened to retail in those twenty three years, with the
Internet and everything, it's almost like it's incredible, isn't it.
The odds were stacked against you to come this far.
Did you feel like that or no.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
We were always pretty confident. Yeah, at the end of
the day. Back in those days, we were twelve stores,
twenty million revenue in the beginning, losing a couple of
million a year, and there were some big power for
groups out there at that time. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
I mean, the warehouse was at the top of its
game at that point. But you somehow negotiated your way
through all that online retailing to find a sort of
like a place in the hearts of New Zealanders for
real stores.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
I guess, yeah, yeah, we did. Well.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Look, I'll talk a bit more about that side of
the business and what you do there, but I just
want to go right back, because Money Talks is about
sort of your relationship with money and just wondering what
your first memories of holding money in your hand would
have been.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
My first memories are are still very vivid in my mind.
I guess about ten or twelve years old. My far
was a bookmaker at the horse racing right in Adelaide,
And as is typical, a bookmaker fields at the races
on Saturday and then when he wakes up Sunday morning,
(02:14):
he gets his betting bags empties all the money hopefully
there's a lot empties the money on the floor, and
says to the kids, you better count it. Wow, I
want the notes sort it this way, and there's a
rubber band that you put around them, and all the
silver he sought this way, and then if you sort it,
(02:35):
then I'll come down and I'll count it out and
put it away. And so there are and I'm back
in an hour or two.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Kids, So it's all cash. In those days, it must
have been a pretty decent wack of piles of money
you're dealing with.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
There was some substantial around amounts of money. Fortunately for Dad,
most times there was a bit of money there, yeah,
but sometimes there was a little less.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Sometimes you lose. I guess when you're the book making
it was.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
A couple of gold watchers and.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, do you think that sort of influenced your understanding
of money and your your your your sense of value
of it and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Well, look, probably, probably, But my earliest memories of getting
into the business was more about I was just fascinated
by the proposition of buying something and then reselling it
for more.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Than I pay for it, right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
They were my biggest memories.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, I mean, did you actually get pocket money for
helping your dad out there and like all that money
but you've got a bit of pocket money.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Yeah, we needed to work for it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
And when you were a kid with the things that
you were, you know you wanted the money for. Was
it you know, saving up for things?
Speaker 1 (03:44):
It was all about the accumulation of money, right yeah? Yeah? Yeah,
and the two bubb a week, you know, you don't
you don't get a lot after a year. Yeah, you
watched a lot of cars, but I guess you know,
that was all part of growing up back in those days.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah. Yeah, So it wasn't like you were specifically saving things.
You actually could see the value of accumulating early on,
because I guess a lot of you know, some kids
just some people never see that in their whole life.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
What about it school? Did you see school as a
path to sort of more money or do you academically inclined?
Speaker 1 (04:19):
No? I was a very unusual adolescent, not particularly keen
on school except for the sporting part of it. Yeah yeah,
but no, for me, it was all about, you know,
preparing myself for the workforce and just dying to get
into a shop and learn how to approach and sell
(04:43):
to people, how to buy something from an amount of
money and then sell it for a little more. Yeah,
it was all about getting experienced from me.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Yeah, so you want to you wanted to do it.
You didn't sort of think, oh, I want to go
off and do a commerce degree or an accounting degree
or anything like that. What was the sport that you
were keen on ossie rules? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeahru was and cricket, and that you went bound for
a career in either of those, no, regrettably. Yeah. So
were you sort of basically keen to get out of
(05:11):
school as soon as you could? Did you? Did you
leave early or when?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Did you know? I left at the prescribed time? So
I finished a year of schooling. I turned sixteen very
quickly thereafter my birthdays in January, and I finished. I
finished then and had my first job before the end
of January of that same year.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Right, yeah, And so what was your first job?
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Working in a shoe shop? Selling? Selling shoes?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yep, And so sales, sales was what you're keen on.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Right, It's a it's a natural starting point. So if
you've got a retail career and you're a sixteen year old,
you never get into buying at that particular st Yeah. Yeah,
if you're clever and you can count properly, then you
might get into a buying office where you can do
(06:02):
ledges and estimates of sales and budgets and those sorts
of things. But that wasn't me. I had to start
at the very very bottom of that ladder.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
And do you think you had a natural aptitude for sales?
I mean, like, is it something you think you learn
or are you were born with it? Because some people
have an ability to sell and some people sort of
shy away from it, find too shy or something.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
I've always been very, very gregarious, so I relate, I
think pretty well to people. I had no trouble selling
to customers, and I felt very very comfortable about it.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah yeah, I mean in those days, I guess, I guess,
like shoe shops, people are coming for the shoes, so
it's more straightforward. But did you get in you know,
you went through other sales jobs where you had to
push a bit harder and twiss people's arms and things
like that.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah. Yeah, I went from a sixteen year old selling
shoes through to store management. Through to major appliances. I
had nine ten or eighteen or nineteen. I was selling
major appliances that there's television's refrigerators, and so you're selling
to very very similar people. You're just selling them a
(07:10):
bigger package.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
I sort of asked this question sometimes later on, But
you know, it obviously is about acquiring money. But at
some point, you know, is it a goal you knows
some sort of payoff to making the sale a sort
of like sports or something. Do you sort of get
a high from the selling?
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I think for me, I set a lot of targets
for myself, and so my target at the shoe shop
was to sell more shoes and more accessories. You sell
more shoe laces, right, yeah, shoe every time you sell
the shoe. Not just about selling the shoes.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
You know, those are the extras.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, we'll get another ten percent if in fact you
sell the dream of keeping the shoes clean and tidy.
And in major appliances, it was all about selling extras.
Is service contracts, all those sorts of things.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah, and I'm jumping around a bit, but obviously one
of the successes of Briscoes is finding that that point
where people you know that there's a point that people
really relate to that store for the right quality goods
at the right price, all that sort of stuff. You do,
You feel like you sort of learned that on the
job in those early years.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
When I first came to New Zealand and purchase Briscoes.
We had to establish very very quickly what segment of
the market we want to sit in, because the segment
that we're in was unsustainable. Yeah, there were too many incumbents.
They were very very good, They are very very big,
(08:44):
and they are very very powerful, and so we had
to find a niche in that landscape. And that landscape
was two dollars shops all the way through to department stores. Yeah,
we had to find a piece of that landscape that
we thought we could settle in, we could own, and
we could easily defend, because once you become successful, the
(09:07):
barriers to entry for entry are not high, and so
you have to find a way of defending that piece
of real estate.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Just recapping that, that purchase of Briscoes. You were an
Australian based executive at that point, right, and you'd been
brought in basically to fix up Briscoes for the Dutch
owners or.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Something, yes, and to sell it.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Yeah, So you could you tell us a bit about
how that process worked and what made you what made
you decide hang on, I think I want to own
this rather than do it for someone else.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yeah. I arrived in New Zealand in September nineteen eighty eight,
and one of the very very first things that we
did we sat down with the primary group of management then,
which was about a dozen people. We sat down with
them and just establish what segment of the market we
wanted to stablished ourselves in That particular segment was high
(10:03):
quality product but a real good price. No one occupied
that space. There was high quality product but quite expensive.
There was very very very very cheap, poor quality stuff
and real cheap, but not a lot in between. So
that was the space that we wanted to occupy, and
so we set about doing that. So we set about
acquiring brands, brand name, merchant, merchandise, and we because we
(10:27):
weren't in shopping malls, we had to promote it very,
very heavily because back in those days, people in New Zealand,
or customers in New Zealand had almost forgotten about us. Yeah,
we've been in business since eighteen sixty but they've forgotten
about us. There were a lot more important retailers doing
a lot of businesses at that point, so that was
(10:50):
our task.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Did you have a marketing background, because there was some
kind of like there's the sort of iconic Brisco's lady.
It's Tammy, is that right?
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Yeah, I mean, can you tell me about how she
got involved and how you got that sort of that
brand recognition going.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
For the first three or four months from that September
right through to Christmas, we'd done loud in your face,
high discount get into the store, right ads. That was
never going to last forever, and we needed a face,
a iconic face that I could use for a very
(11:26):
long time, that projected and showed folks the value of
my brand. We did a whole lot of interviews and
Tammy came through very very strong. We tested her in
the market that also came through very very strong, and
here we are.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
It was a good call because she's really resonated with
the New Zealand public.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Right Yeah. And she's lasted a very very very long
time and she's been she's been an important part of
our team.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah. So I mean there's a lot going on there
with creating a brand, marketing and all that sort of stuff.
Is there a leap that you made from you know,
you're working your way from the shoe sales and you're
doing appliances. But what was the leap that you made
to get into more of a as you say, like
doing the buying as well as the selling, and more
of an executive type role.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Yeah. Well I had a number of those in Australia
before I came to newsk So in Australia, the last
job I had over there was the managing director of
Norman Ross, which was the forerunner of Harvey Norman, and
that was more a fix and get back on its
feet job immediately prior to ours, with a department store
chain in Sydney. So my background in retail had been
(12:40):
all the way from a sixteen year old in a
shoe shop, all the way through to a senior mitchell
a director role inside retail, and all the time being
in retail. So I think I'd really passed or served
as at each of those touch points all the way through.
So by the time I came to New Zealand, I
(13:02):
was already familiar with what might be required to fix
an organization didn't have that many problems but to fix it.
So I'd already pretty well done in Australia, which was
quite a different market to New Zealand at that point.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Sure, and so the sorts of things that I did
there turned out to work pretty well here in this country. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
I mean, I guess what I'm getting at though, is
like you didn't need to go back and do an
MBA or anything like any of this executive accounting stuff.
You must have kept learning all the way through, right,
just learning based on solving problems as you win. Kind
of thing, was it.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Look, you learn a lot in each of the roles
that you fulfilled. In the early roles, you're learning about
people and what it takes to sell. In the middle roles,
you're learning about the value of inventory, the value of promotions,
what turns people on, what makes people get out of
(13:56):
their lounge chair and run to your store and buy something?
What did that take? Yeah, you know it's not just price.
The price is a serious motivator, but it's not just price.
And so you're learning all that way, all the way
through to today. You know, you're learning about the text implications,
the depreciation, the value of owning stores rather than renting
(14:18):
them or renting them at the right price.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
So you're learning because any different body management all sorts
of things going on right.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Yes, And it's not just about making sales. You've got
to make sales, You've got to make margin. It's all
about going to factories all over the world and buying
at the right price. As you buy at the right
price at the very very beginning. It's very, very hard
to sell at the right price if you have not
bought at the right price.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
And what about rebel rebel sport, Where did that idea
come from? Obviously that's found a niche as well. That's
really stuck in the retail landscape of New Zealand.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Yeah, I've been encouraged by our banker back at about
ninety four, nineteen ninety four to ninety five, because we
weren't borrowing any money, to try and borrow some money.
So it appeared to me that perhaps I should look
at establishing or purchasing another business. So I got bolted
onto the business I had. I was a tennis player
(15:12):
back in those days, and my dear friend who I
just finished playing tennis with, I said to him Stewart,
I need to buy a racket and some shoes and
pants and one have you. Where do I go? He said, well,
you're going to have to go to about six or
seven stores, because not everybody sold. Some sold rackets, and
some sold shorts and some sold shoes. So I said
(15:33):
to him, how about how about if I set up
a sporting good store to sold everything, every brand, all
those things in the one store. How would that go?
And he said to me, I think it go pretty good. Yeah,
And so that's where the dream of Rebel started. We
found a brand name that we liked, we found some
(15:54):
people in Australia who could assist us putting it together,
which we did, and we opened their first store in
September nineteen ninety six, and the rest is ssstory.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, it's interesting because it's a big step to take.
But in the same token you've talked about, you've never
gotten into trouble over expanding like that, which can be
a risk when you have some success, right you see
businesses do that all the time and they take on
too much debt and then you have a downturn like
we've got now and you're exposed on cash flow and whatnot.
Do you sort of see yourself as a risk averse
(16:26):
on debt clearly, clearly yesh relative to other.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Yeah, But at the same time, I don't see that
we've ever taken, you know, real risks, serious risks. During
the GFC eight we slowed expansion down. So instead what
we did we went behind the business and put in
a multimillion dollar SAP financial and merchandise system, right, and
(16:56):
that took us two years to get that up, so
that by the we've come out of GFC, I had
this fully established, and so we now knew all about
our business down to light item to every dollar that
we spent. We spent four or five million dollars putting
it up, and suddenly we came out of GFC and
(17:17):
we were running, and we were running even faster and
knowing more about our business because we've made this significant
investment over this very very lean period of the GC And.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
That's kind of seeing the counter cyclical, isn't it being
able to time it?
Speaker 1 (17:35):
And quite frankly, that's what we're doing exactly now. We've
just committed to a one hundred million dollar brand new
DC facility, which we're doing now as we speak.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
On that project, I wanted to ask you a little
bit about how you feel, you know, Officer of New
Zealand Order of Merit. I guess you would say at
that point you're a New Zealander, but you're also in
Australian and I wondered how you feel about New Zealand
and the comparisons doing business and you know, I just
we tend to be a bit down on ourselves, especially
at the moment looking across the Tasman, and I wondered
(18:06):
how you felt about that New Zealand sort of business
world generally.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Look, I came over here in nineteen eighty eight having
spent my entire working life in Australia. When I arrived
in this country, there were a lot of things that
we did in Australia that we didn't do in this country.
And a lot of the things that brisk goes up
and running very very very very quickly. For example, Sunday trading. Yeah,
Sunday trading was illegal in this country. So we did
(18:35):
some homework, found out how illegal it is, how we're
going to get caught, and find if we were to
be who were the victims. Did the general public really
want it? Well they did, and we did it orbit illegally,
but we were writing a month's turnover in a day. Wow. Yeah,
(18:56):
And we did it for six weeks on our own
before the government made illegal and.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Then the law change. Then you're up and running already, So.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
That's I'm up and running.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Do you think there's much of a
character difference doing business? You know, like New Zealand is
that different to Australians. I mean Australia was more advanced
in the retail and probably up with some more of
the American innovations and things when you arrived, right, But.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Yeah, well Australia was certainly more when I came to
New Zealand. I can best characterize it has been doing
business perhaps a decade before. The sorts of things we
used to do in Sydney were still being done here,
things like we were still taking checks. Yeah yeah, it
takes checks, but they were still doing it here, so
(19:37):
we had to do it. I had a lot of
the innovative things that we do we did through the
media in Australia. We're not being done here. So we
introduced all those very very very very quickly. Because that
was my background, that's all I knew, and as a
consequence it success moved very very quickly.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yeah, got a few quick fire questions that we run
through and just off the top of your head. So
one of them is, what would you say the poorest
you've ever been?
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Is? Oh, gee, I guess, I guess when I first
started work at sixteen years old. Yeah, yeah, I made
the decision to go out and get a flat with
three mates.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Were your parents happy about that?
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Well?
Speaker 2 (20:20):
There were in those days. Is maybe it was?
Speaker 1 (20:21):
That was it? Well, they probably weren't happy. Yeah, but
at the end of the day, Look, I just craved
for independence and so so I did. And I back
in those days, I don't know what I was earning
sixty five dollars a week and there was not a
lot left over, so you had to sell it. I
had to sell, I had to sell quickly.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
And well yeah, yeah, do you remember a point in
those early days where you suddenly realized you did have
a few dollars in your pocket that you felt like
you were getting on top of it, you know? And
if so, what sort of did you splash out on
and those sort of things.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Yeah. I have worked at Brisco's with a colleague and
he was there ten years before I was, and he
was the CFO, and he's just recently retired. And I
remember one day having been at Brisco's probably for seven
or eight years, and I said to him, I think
(21:12):
I think we've made a fair bit of money, you know,
And he said yeah, he said, Look, you'll be read
in there now. He says that, right. There was never
a goal. It was never something that you ever think of.
I said to you a little earlier. You know, I'm
more about for me, I'm all about setting targets. My
targets were to have more stores, to have a high volume,
(21:38):
to have more profitable stores. It was those sorts of things.
It was never about for me. It's not who's got
the most toys, who's got the most money?
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Yeah, a number in the bank account. I mean, I
guess there's a once you go into business like that,
you're constantly chasing the best business deal, the best structure,
you can arrange, all that sort of stuff. We're just
doing business.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Yeah, there is that, But also the fear of bankruptcy,
right yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah, you've got a lot of people who work for you,
and you know you're responsible for a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Well, there's there's that as well. You know, I can
remember earlier when I when I did purchase the business.
You know, I trotted along to a lot of banks,
and the final one that agreed to give me trading
finance made me sign a personal guarantee for thirty five million.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Well yeah, easy getting loans in those days either was it.
That wasn't, especially in this country.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
It wasn't, but they did it. Yeah. You know, so
I'm a thirty eight year old got this, got a
plan that I've got a planned Yeah, and I got
a thirty eight million to an overdraft. Wow. Yeah. You
don't survive unless you succeed.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Yeah, And I guess that kind of that sort of
instills a bit of fear of failure. You know, you've
when you've got to overdraft that size.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Or yeah, or some people sometimes some people sit down
and then success actually drives them on. Yeah, other people
that the fear of failure drives themond.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
But something both are going because you could you know,
you could have sold out ten twenty years ago or whatever,
and you probably had a house and a batch and
you know, so something you must love doing business.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
I can't begin to imagine what I would do if
I didn't have the responsibility of a business that I
basically gave birth to.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah, yeah, and so so I guess that's a sort
of a satisfaction type thing. The other other hobbies that
you have.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Look, I like playing golf. I like running around the world,
touring around the world ye with my beautiful wife and
my good mates. Yep. I like nice wine.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
I like socializing the things.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
What about if I asked as what would you say
the most indulgent purchase you'd ever.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Made outside of a house that a came in out? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Yeah, something that you splashed out on yourself.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
For oh myself, I don't know, Probably probably not very much.
I bought myself three new suits when I was away, right, yeah,
four weeks ago. Yeah. I don't spend a lot of
money on myself. I love buying a thousand doll a
bottle of wine for a bunch of mates overseas.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
So you can splash out when you for the experiences.
Yeah yeah, yeah, Well that's something in itself, isn't it,
The ability to do that. I love making occasions, memories,
that sort of thing. You probably aren't in charge of this,
but we've been asking because our promised Christopher Luxen was
asked on the campaign trail how much he spent on
(24:43):
groceries during a week, and he said sixty dollars because
he was talking about his coffee and whatnot in his
flat and Wellington, I think, but do you have any
budget for the grocery shopping? Are you in charge of
any of that? We trust your wife.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Yeah, not my department.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Fair enough. We often ask there was a big lotto
draw recently. Do you still buy a lotto tickets? Do
you ever?
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Did you?
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Did you ever?
Speaker 1 (25:07):
I have probably bought six in my entire life. Yeah.
The odds are the odds are too great.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Yeah. What about did you with your you know, outbringing
with your dad, did you get a bug for betting
on the horses or anything like that?
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Yeah? I do a bit of that. I do a
bit of that. Yeah, that's that's one thing I have bought.
I bought race horses.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Oh I suppose that's that's a hobby.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Yeah, that's a hobby. That's expensive hobby. But it can be, Yeah,
it can be. But it can be a lot of
fun as well.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Yeah, and it can actually be a good investment sometimes too, right,
So it's not totally not often. Oh, well, you know
that that's an exciting thing to be involved with. So
you can be betting on a horse that you've actually
got a real stake in, right.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, when not so long ago we ran second in
the Melbourne Cup.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Wow, Yeah, so that's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yeah, well that is that's that's that's that's a big thrill.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeah, that's something that would you know when you think
think back to your dad being a bookie, he must
have been be quite impressed with that. We've sort of
touched on. Yeah, making money important to here or is
it a byproduct of success? It sounds like it primarily
is a byproduct of success.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Look, I think it's is byproduct, but for me it's not.
It's not a real motivator making making money for the
business so I can support the two thousand families who
work in the business. Yeah, now that's now that's a
bit of fun. Yeah. And COVID recently with the lockdowns
that tested us enormously, but that was a lot of
(26:28):
fun to get through that survive that come out a
very very much stronger business. Yeah, you know that that
was a that was a bit of fun looking back,
and it was a lot of fun then. But it's
a lot of fun looking back on it.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah, I won't. I won't go massively into the business
side of things right now, but you feel comfortable that
you're doing all right. There's a lot of gloom out
there in the economy, and we've seen you know, Smith
and Coe's and sort of a lot of retailers talking
about how rough it is, you know it is. Do
you feel you've got a sort of a very robust
structure there to get through this sort of cycle.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
That we're in a glamorous position that for the last
thirty five years we've saved a lot of money. We
haven't borrowed any money from a bank for twenty five years,
so we're cash riche we're not indebted.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yeah, which is pretty crucial at a time like this.
It's the guys who've got big debts that are.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Exactly We've got spectacular staff. We've looked after them all
through COVID. Look, make no mistake, it's tough. It's very, very,
very tough in the suburbs. And look, I'm not going
to have a record year in terms of profit, but
we're going to go right. Yeah, we'll go right.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
And I guess you way up. Whether you're expanding now
or whether you're just hungering down.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
To the couple of things you put on hold until
it gets better. Sometimes you spend a lot of money
when it's tough because you know you're going to come
out of it. Yeah, I just can't tell you whether
it's going to be at the end of this year
or next year. But no, that's right, come through it.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Yeah, the cycle will turn and the strongest will survive.
On that sort of broader economic stuff, if there was
something that you could change in New Zealand to sort
of improve their country's economy or all that sort of stuff,
you know, if we can make your Prime minister for
a day, is there something that you would want to
see put your focus on to change the absolutely settings
in New Zealand?
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah, yeah, I'd be looking at the education system. Yeah, yeah,
I think the education system right now in this country
is absolutely appalling.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Yeah, I mean there's a lot of talk that it's
kind of been let slide. So what would you like
to see?
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Just look, I'd like to see just the return to basics.
I'd like to see for probably high school beyond primary school,
you know, some focus on economics, on budgeting, on those
sorts of things to teach kids' life skills, you know,
And I just don't. I just don't see that it's
(28:52):
happening right now. Now. I'm not an expert on the
education system. My land has gone through that now. He's
twenty seven, twenty eight years old, so yeah, you know,
he's been out of it for probably several eight years now.
But everyone you talk to who has kids of that
that age, you know, tell me that the system is
(29:12):
just in ruins.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah, and kids not really having coming out with a
sense of Yeah, like you say, the sense of financial literacy,
isn't it really? Which I guess you've got almost a
better start in that with like your dad and the money.
You know, you know, the value of a dollar is
an important thing to learn quite early on, right.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Yeah. But even back then, you know, I could, I
could tell my seven times table, and you understood the
basics of mathematics. I knew how to write. Yeah. I'm
not sure that a lot of kids these days are
even getting that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah, And if someone hands you a note, you know
what change to give them back?
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Yeah. I don't think it's complicated, but it certainly needs
some Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
So just to wrap up, what then. I know we
talked about it being a tough economy, but do you
still have plans and vision for Risco and Rebelsport the brands.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
You know, it's it's not over. Yeah, we've got some
big plans coming up. We're looking to expand the business.
We're looking to acquire or establish a bigger business. This
business has a lot of capacity, a fabulous trading platform
and we think we don't think we're we need the
(30:31):
end of expansion yet.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
That's great, Rod, We'll leave it there. Thanks for being
on Money Talks. Thank you mate, Thanks for listening to
this episode of Money Talks. If you want to get
in touch, drop me a line at Liam dot Dan
at nzmeet dot co dot nz and you can read
more from me at zidherld dot co dot nz. Thanks
to my producer Ethan sills can sound engineer LeAnn McDonald.
(30:55):
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