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Todd Hunter: Turners Automotive CEO on the company's record return · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks Be follow
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  Speaker 1: this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
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  Speaker 2: Another good sign that you can run a successful business
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  Speaker 2: even of times a peer a bit tight. This is
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  Speaker 2: going back to what Andrew Keller who was telling us
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  Speaker 2: a couple of months ago. This is Turners, of course,
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  Speaker 2: record year to March profits up seventeen percent. Todd Hunt
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  Speaker 2: is the CEO of the business and as with us,
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  Speaker 2: Todd morning, Good morning Mike. So a decade of sustainable growth.
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  Speaker 2: What's your secret?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I guess it's many things in the end, but yeah,
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  Speaker 3: I think, I mean, I think the formula we work
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  Speaker 3: to is provide a great environment for our people. They
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  Speaker 3: provide a great experience for our customers, and the combination
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  Speaker 3: of those two things should deliver a great experience for
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  Speaker 3: our shareholders. And I think the formula is absolutely proven
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  Speaker 3: out and will continue to prove out.
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  Speaker 2: How on the edge of the economy are you, in
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  Speaker 2: other words, you reliant on the place doing well?
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  Speaker 3: Yes, certainly, aspects of our business are. We had a
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  Speaker 3: very tough first half in our auto business. We were
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  Speaker 3: having to discount cars to keep sales going quite heavily.
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  Speaker 3: I mean similar things that you would hear from Rod
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  Speaker 3: Duke at Brisco's, I think. But we do have some
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  Speaker 3: diversification in earnings, so having the finance business and the
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  Speaker 3: insurance business alongside the auto business does help provide consistency.
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  Speaker 3: But certainly the second half for us was much stronger
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  Speaker 3: than the first half, and we had all our business
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  Speaker 3: divisions reporting ahead of the prior year in the second.
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  Speaker 2: Half, and that second half is part of a recovery
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  Speaker 2: or not.
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  Speaker 3: I think it is a part of recovery. I would
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  Speaker 3: say it feels to us like the economy is bouncing
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  Speaker 3: along the bottom. I'm a strong advocate for the Reserve
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  Speaker 3: Bank doing something meaningful today, and they need to. I
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  Speaker 3: think Jared Kerr is absolutely on the money when he
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  Speaker 3: sees interest rates are still restrictive and we need to
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  Speaker 3: stimulate the economy for sure.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so you'd say fifty points absolutely, Okay. When you
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  Speaker 2: talk about your loan book expanding, I'm always interested in that.
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  Speaker 2: Do people borrow to buy a car because they have
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  Speaker 2: to or because they're bullish or a bit of both.
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  Speaker 3: I would say more because they have to, And we
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  Speaker 3: put a lot of effort into making well. Firstly, making
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  Speaker 3: sure people can pay those loans back and then they've
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  Speaker 3: got some buffer to withstand some surprise event that may
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  Speaker 3: cause some strain and pressure. So that is one of
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  Speaker 3: the reasons our loan book is performing so well.
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  Speaker 2: The no guidance for the year ahead, you join a
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  Speaker 2: long queue of people who seemingly don't have a clue
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  Speaker 2: what's going on. How difficult is it right now?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's tricky for sure. And the guidance thing is
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  Speaker 3: always interesting. We try and keep our investors in shareholds
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  Speaker 3: and interested people focused on the medium term. I kind
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  Speaker 3: of have a view that the results maybe up and
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  Speaker 3: down a bit in the short term. What you want
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  Speaker 3: people has focused on kind of medium term growth, and
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  Speaker 3: that's why we put out a three year target. So
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  Speaker 3: we're very confident we're going to get to that. To
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  Speaker 3: that number and twenty eight of sixty five million.
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  Speaker 2: How good is Tina? The Tina thing is better than
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  Speaker 2: you ever could have imagined or not, for sure.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, that has been a unicorn of a marketing campaign.
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  Speaker 3: She has resonated with people more than we ever thought
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  Speaker 3: would happen. It's been great for our team internally, and yeah,
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  Speaker 3: I mean it's just been just a super campaign. Looking yesterday,
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  Speaker 3: see we've had over one point one million views of
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  Speaker 3: the sixty second ad on YouTube and people are watching
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  Speaker 3: it for fifty six seconds. They were watching the entire ad,
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  Speaker 3: which is very unusual.
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  Speaker 2: Good on you and so yesterday you had your result.
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  Speaker 2: Plus I'm assuming you watched Monaco.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, great result for Liam did what needed to do
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  Speaker 3: as a team player and in got the results. So
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  Speaker 3: you're very proud, very proud of his achievement last weekend.
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  Speaker 2: Good stuff, nice talk you make and go well. Appreciate it.
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  Speaker 2: Todd Hunter, who is the CEO at Turner's Automotive, the
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  Speaker 2: reference to them. They have am they have a tie
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  Speaker 2: up with them.
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