Mark Troughear: Freightways CEO on the rise in net profits for the year

Financial results are coming in thick and fast. 

a2 Milk is reporting a 21% rise in profit alongside announcing it has bought the Yashili  plant in Pokeno. 

It's also sold its majority stake in the Mataura Valley plant in Gore to Open Country Dairy. 

Contact Energy's profit is up 13% after a surge in geothermal generation. 

Freightways' profit is up 12.9%. 

Chief executive Mark Troughear is putting it partly down to strong growth in Australia. 

He told Mike Hosking he’s been through three recessions in this business and they’re all a little bit different, but he thinks we may have just broken the back of this current one. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Reporting season back here, although it's got to review mirror
vibe about it. Of course, it is a good look
as to how our economy is moving or not. Freightways
as always star of the show. They've seen that profit
up twelve point nine percent. Revenue also rose up six
point six percent to one point three billion. Mike tro
here is the Freightways CEO and is back with this.
Make very good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, good morning, Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
You'd be pretty happy.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah, look, really good result for our team. I think
they've done some pretty hard work over the last couple
of years and really neat to see it come out
in that full year result.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Your individual company's careers post haste, Big Chill, do they
vary widely in performance at any given time or do
you give them all the same treatment therefore they roll
along the same They.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Can vary a little bit, so Big Chills. Finding it
a little bit harder at the moment because they deliver
a lot of premium food into restaurants, cafes, hospitality, and
so you're not really seeing that sector recover. So yeah,
they're struggling a little bit more than say new zing
couriers or post haste that are delivering e commerce and
business to the business deliveries.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
What do I look at in your result and what
does it tell me about the broader New Zealand economy
of anything.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
We've got a key measure where we look at all
of our existing customers and we see how well they're
trading And for the last two and a half years
it's like we've been writing into a bloody headwind, so
they've been trading down for two and a half years.
In the last six months there's just a sliver of
growth amongst those customers. So that's really the green tinge.

(01:29):
I don't know if it's a shoot, but the green
tinge that we're looking for is those customers just doing
a little bit better.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Nbr's got a headline this morning it says you are
the guide to the start of the New Zealand economic recovery.
Is that fair?

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Look, we're a more diversified business these days. About a
third of our revenue and earnings come from Australia. But
if you do look at those courier businesses and the
customers there, there's about fifty thousand business customers, so there's
a pretty good cross section of New Zealand and I
guess we feel just a little bit of a turn around.
I've been through three recessions of this business and they're

(02:04):
all a little bit different. But I think with this one, yeah,
we might have just broken the back of it.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Good express package volume zero point four compared to Australia's twelve.
Is that just the tale of two countries and economies are.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
A tale of two different niches. Really, the business we
have in Australia is picking up a lot of market share,
does a really good job in a niche. Their customers
are growing really well, which is not really symptomatic for
the Aussie economy. It's just that they've got some customers
that are doing a bloody good job. So yeah, you
can't really read New Zealand Australian economy into those two numbers.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
I get you back here in November December. Do you
tell a more positive story of New Zealand? Will the
shades of whatever you were talking about, the actual shoots
or more?

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Yeah, the green tinges growing couple of centimeters, Yeah, I
think we will, Mike. I think it'll keep improving from
here on out. I'm not sure it'll be quick. I
don't think it'll happen in a great rush, but I
think there'll be a very very slow city improvement from
here on.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Great great stuff. Congratulations again, appreciate your times always. Mactro here,
who's the Freightwave CEO? With us this morning.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
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