Latest / Best of Business / David Mair: Sanford Managing Director on profits surging 224% and reducing debt by half

Transcript

David Mair: Sanford Managing Director on profits surging 224% and reducing debt by half · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News talks'b Follow this
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Back to this good news story of Sandford and the
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: fishing two hundred and twenty four percent boost and profit
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: debts are down, the muscles are selling. David Mayor of
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Sandford's managing director and is with us.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: Good morning, Good morning mate.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: So the turnaround journey, is it complete or are we
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: on our way?
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: We're on our way. We're about halfway through, whatever that means.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: But it's very pleasing to have such a great result.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: So by way a background, you came from another company,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: you relatively knew there, What did you find, what did
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: you like? What were the problems?
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: If I was managing director of scaler Up for fourteen years.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: In a funny way, the business principles are the same.
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: So I'm a purpose guy, not a mission guy or
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: a vision guy or those kind of things. And by
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: focusing on customers, true customer focus, we're turning this business around.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: But of course that takes time. So the challenges have
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: been that Cenford had too much debt in my view,
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: and the debt was increasing, and I'm I'm very focused
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: on operating cash flow. So the thing I'm most pleased
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: and the results was simply we created one hundred and
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: thirty five point three million of operating cash flow and
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: use that cash flow to pay down debt ninety two
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: point one million. Repayment of debt our net debt is
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: now ninety three point four And as you know well Mike,
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: that means we're in control of the company, not the bens.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Is yours a Sandford story as opposed to a Fishing story?
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Then do you think?
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: Yes? Very much? So I'm to borrow a quote, I'm
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: dere to make Sanford grade again.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Good on you. Where's China fit into all of this?
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: And what can you tell us about China as opposed
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: to say, America as a market.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a that's a really interesting thing, because you know,
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: the signals from the government and others are you know,
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: we we need to divert fire away from China. But
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: from my point of view, you know, I lived in
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: Japan for ten and a half years. Will bore you
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: with my history, But the reality is China remains a
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: very important market for companies like Sanford. The fundamental thing
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: that the world wants from New Zealand is protein. So
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: Centford's very much a protein story in the same way
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: that you know many about dairy companies are Fums the
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: largest one from Tier and they will continue to just
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: think about the population and the growth protein. Growth of
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: protein for the next ten years is just up. It's
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: very strong. Back ones doesn't sound very exciting selling protein
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: compared to salmon or muscles or whatever. But China is
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: very important to us and so we are re establishing
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: strong relationships in the air and the business is going
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: well right now. It's tough in China because discretionary spending
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: has dropped away and that's just you know, to have
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: internal issues and things like that. But us things will
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: get sold. Business is taking a longer term view, not
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: looking at last month, next month, that kind of thing.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: What about the US and the tariffs, Yeah, it's again.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: The tariff thing is interesting for us. You know, I
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: observe the change in beef and things like that, But
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: for US and for all New Zealand exporters, it comes
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: down to who pays. So when it comes to just
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: quickly salmon our importers pay the tariff and they believe
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: they can pass it on the closer you get to it,
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: you know, a substitutable product, a true commodity like for example,
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: frozen half shell muscles. It's much easier to substitute, so
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: it's much harder to pass it on where the ultimate
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: consumer can change. It's had almost no impact on Centford
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: in the f y twenty five and we don't see
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: you know ke for how I say that that we
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: don't see a big impact going.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Forward, Well that's encouraging. All I can do is wish
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: you the very best. David Man, who's the other boss
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: at Sandford this morning, right the Epstein vote.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: For more from Used Talks at b Listen line on
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio