Lee Marshall: Hunter Campbell Managing Partner on the results of the Mood of the CFO survey

New Zealand’s finance leaders are more confident for the year ahead. 

A new report from the Hunter Campbell Group shows an uptick in confidence from CFOs, with 38% expecting modest to strong growth over the next 12 months – up from 31% last year. 

But on the flip side, confidence in the Government’s ‘responsiveness’ remains low across the board. 

Hunter Campbell Managing Partner Lee Marshall told Mike Hosking they’re starting to see a two speed economy take shape in New Zealand, with almost half of businesses surveyed meeting or exceeding their targets, while the other half stagnated or went backwards. 

He says in general, those whose businesses performed well in the last 12 months are very confident things will continue to improve in the next 12 months.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So economic insight into our state of play comes from
the Hunter Campbell group. Mood about our CFOs, we have
an uptick and confidence thirty eight percent, expecting modest to
strong growth over the next twelve months. That's up from
thirty one, So thirty one up to thirty eight. Lee Marshall,
managing partner at Hunter Campbell, is with us. Lee, morning to.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
You well and Mike, thanks for having on not at all.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
CFOs versus CEOs versus boards, work versus surveys the value
of a CFO, and there insight.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Is what look I think for us CFOs who are
at the very top of the tree and looking after
all of the finances on a day to day basis,
they consider economic and legislative factors on a daily basis.
So in reality, and there's no one really better place
than a CFO to give us a three sixty view
of how businesses have performing and what we can expect

(00:44):
moving forward.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
So what are you hearing generally versus their own stories?
There are divergence there.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yes, what we're actually seeing. One of the big things
that came out of the survey is that we're started
to see a little bit of a I guess two
speed economy start to take shape in New Zealand. Almost
exactly fifty percent of the businesses that we saur they'd
had either met or exceeded their targets for the last year,
and the other fifty percent had the stagnated or went backwards.

(01:12):
So we're starting to see a little bit of a
two speed economy start to take shape in New Zealand. Business.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Are you seeing the uptickers real? Because we all thought
twenty five was going to get bitter it hasn't. We
were wrong collectively. How do we know they're not wrong? Now?

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah? Look, I think the longer time goes on, the
clear of the picture will become. You know, we are
facing a pretty big mess economically, right so, and the
world is a little bit of turmoil, I think.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
So.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
I think it's a really complex environment that we're facing
and as we work through this though, and what we
did say is that if you had a decent year
in the last twelve months, you are very confident that
it's going to get better in the next twelve months.
And so that was heartening to see that and that
there's less uncertainty kicking around with those businesses going pretty well.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
What about the old irony that people are hard to find.
How is it possible with the capacity in the economy,
good people are still hard to find.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah, look for the accounting sector in particular, we sort
of started this period in pretty bad shape. I think
we read somewhere that the Big four has shrunk their
headcount in the last twelve months by five hundred people.
We are producing less accountants from university, and we also
lose people to overseas on a regular basis, particularly to

(02:27):
London and people going on their ow way. So we start,
we start from a really poor position from a talent perspective,
and then you have all of these factors come into
play and it makes it a little bit more difficult.
Succession planning for businesses came through the survey as one
of the biggest strategic blind spot. Only one in four
CFOs are confident that they have the right talent in

(02:48):
place for succession planning, So we actually have we have
a big issue around future planning and some gaps starting
to show in a market there.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
That's stuff on compliance and simplified text. Every time you
ask somebody who deals with pens and papers and counting,
they always say, oh, we need a bit of compliance
and simplifying text. Isn't that real? I mean, are we
really that bad? Have we done nothing in the decades
worth of surveys ve and reading about this?

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Well, I think we've done some things, and certainly there
have been some tweaks to tax policy that this was
really a big number. Those seventy nine percent of CFO
surveyed said they want of the government to move policies
so they can help accelerate growth. But interestingly for me,
un look sixty five percent of them spoke specifically to

(03:35):
tax but interestingly only thirty eight percent of the respondents
have actually worked with government to remove these roadblocks. So
if you ask me, we actually need to see more
business working with governments to try and move this forward.
And look, at the end of the day, we've got
a general election next year. The likelihood of major policy
changing happening anytime soon is probably quite quite unlikely. So

(03:58):
I think business is largely to get off their hands
and start helping themselves out.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Really good on you, I could talk to you for hours.
In fact, we may get you back on another day
and an interesting insight. Lee Marshall Hunter Campbell, managing partner
with us this morning For more from the mic Asking Breakfast,
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