The Country 17/07/26: Riley Kennedy talks to Jamie Mackay

In the absence of Niall Browne, chief executive of Dawn Meats, we catch the BusinessDesk senior journalist, who has written a good piece on how the Irish processor has moved quickly to reshape the Alliance Group. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Riley Kennedy from Business Desk written an excellent story on
Nile Brown. Dawn meets in the Alliance Group. You told
me you would get him on the show for me
today you've let me down.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yes, you're good, good afternoon. I'm apologies for not being
your ea, but I was actually doing my own job.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Well, I know what you've been doing this morning, and
most of it hasn't involved work. You have been poking
bor Exit, another leading rural broadcaster.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yes, and he was texting me while he was on
air too, and I.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Thought, well, well let's not encourage him. We don't want
to give him publicity. Hey, we're going to try and
get Nyle Brown on the show. Have you talked to
him or did you go through an intermediary?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
No? No, I did talk to him. He's here. He's
going to the Rugby tomorrow night, which is a test
of his loyalty.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Actually, so he's taken majority ownership of the Alliance Group.
Dawn meats have His quote is we know what's required
to make a business hum properly. They tell me he's
a really good bloke, But is he a bit of
a hard ass? You'd have to be, wouldn't he.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
You would have to be to turn a line round,
but he seems like quite a nice guy, and you know,
they've turned around a number of meat companies in Europe,
so I think they're going to do a pretty good
job of Alliance and it's going to be a pretty
strong competitor if they can tackle off everything that they
want to do. But it seems to be that the
company is going to be a lot less corporate than
what at once was. I know they had quite a

(01:25):
big office in christ Church, but even there in the
cargo offices going back out to Launville, I think less
corporate and less centralized as the mantra.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Well, I always did wonder why Alliance Group moved their
head office to Christchurch and the cargo's where it was founded,
that's where the office should have been.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, yes, but I guess you know, christ Church is
an international airport there. When you're running a global business there,
you've got to be in and out of the airport,
so there probably is an argument for that, But yeah,
I think it'd be It's quite an interesting I don't
think there would be a meat company, and particularly one
of the big ones that have their head office that
particularly flagship plant, so I think that's quite an interesting

(02:02):
move really.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Well, Silver Fir and Farms has its head off a
Sera and Dunedin. It's flagship plants are at the scene
of the country.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yes, but not on site though No.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Okay, fair enough. So he's had a bit of a cleanout,
hasn't he In terms of the executive he's cut it
down and I guess that's fair enough because they're bringing
in all the dawn Meets executive horsepower.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yes, the door meets understand have traveled out here quite
a bit and extensibly and looking over the business as
you would do when you've just brought a business that
desperately needs to turn around. But the Alliance executive is
now half the size of what it once was. They
lost the CEO, the CFO and the head of lifetop,
all of which have obviously been replaced now as the CEO,

(02:46):
of course, but Rob Stole was coming over from Siddeley
to be the CFO there. But I think that's probably
quite a signals actually what they're doing there. They're basically
cutting the place out, smaller executive than more accountable for
their responsibilities, which is some companies around the country should

(03:09):
look at the side of their executives and then look
at Aliance.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Any companies in particular, Riley. That was a pointed comment,
a comment.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
It was a very pointed comment. But some companies have,
you know, twelve people on their executive but you know
Alliance now got six something.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Off the top of me, it hasn't well in some ways.
It hasn't been a great week farmer announcement wise, Riley,
because we had Fonterra dropping the milk forecast milk price
fifty cents earlier in the week, and then we had
a wall cell yesterday and I've got some info on
that somewhere. I am literally drowning in paper here today, Riley.
So just when you thought it was safe to go

(03:50):
back into the water, yesterday's sale in christ it strong
well indicate it down sixty two cents. That's a nearly
ten percent drop, only sixty two percent wall sold thirty
eight past. And I hope this is just a small
glitch or aberration. But I guess what when gravity eventually,
you know, takes over, doesn't it?

Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah, it does, and of course it's it's it was
a fine demand thing that you know, the wall supply
drop quite a bit, but I think at the moment
you've got a bit of a dynamic going on of
the manufacturers can't pass through the cost of consumers, and
then you go out and buy a Marino coat, you'll
notice that the price has gone up, and at some

(04:32):
point the manufacturers have to go all, well, hold on,
we actually can't pass us through to the consumer, so
we actually just can't buy as much walls. But I
don't think it's going to be There's a bit of
a correction going on, but it depends how long that
correction goes.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
Well, can I get one final comment from you, because
haven't touched on this and I should have, and this
is the bird flu thing. How worried do you think
we should be? Because I know MPI is doing a
good job. They've got the hot line eight hundred and eight,
he ninety nine sixty six. If you see three or
more dead birds or sick birds together, they want it,
they want it reported. Just give me twenty seconds on this.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
I think it's I haven't really followed it at all.
But the worst thing you can do in these sort
of situations is going and panic. So I've been cautious,
you know, I guess I was listening to Andrew Hogar
the other night, and I thought he spoke quite well
in that press conference. He said there should be no
cause for alarm over and just sort of calm down

(05:30):
would be the best course of action.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
He's a man who's very frugal on hyperbole, isn't he