Latest / Best of Business / Graham Leaming: Skellerup CEO on the company reporting record profits

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Graham Leaming: Skellerup CEO on the company reporting record profits · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News talks'd be follow
• 0:12
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  Speaker 2: Always good if you're producing record years and scale ups.
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  Speaker 2: Seems to be on a roll. Revenues up ten percent,
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  Speaker 2: profits up eighteen percent of record sixty four point two million.
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  Speaker 2: They're even beating Trump and tariffs. Graham leaving a scalar
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  Speaker 2: up CEO and is back with us. Graham, morning to you.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Good morning, Mike, well done, and you're feeling that ground shoon,
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  Speaker 2: You're feeling good.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, We've been a good year, Mike, as you as
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  Speaker 3: you noted this so and we're in pretty good shape.
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  Speaker 2: The US story, talk me through it. How do you
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  Speaker 2: get around Trump? And how do you get around tariffs?
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  Speaker 3: I think if we've talked before, Mike, that is our
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  Speaker 3: largest market in these several elements to it. Tariffs were
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  Speaker 3: in a surprise when they came on back at the
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  Speaker 3: end of our FY twenty five. I guess it was
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  Speaker 3: April twenty five. So we planned to hit it by
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  Speaker 3: getting inventory and market and then the nature of what
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  Speaker 3: we sell in the customers that we have and the
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  Speaker 3: relationships that we have, we're able to adjust prices pretty
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  Speaker 3: promptly in response to tariffs. And also we're pretty hard
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  Speaker 3: on the cost side of the equation as well, So
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  Speaker 3: in general you never get things done exactly in sync,
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  Speaker 3: but in general are able to overcome the impact of
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  Speaker 3: tariffs without too much problem. I guess the other thing
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  Speaker 3: was they changed pretty rapidly soon after we reported our
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  Speaker 3: halfy results actually reduced and you had the IEPA terrafs
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  Speaker 3: ruled illegal. So their combination of factor is my good
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  Speaker 3: people running the business well.
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  Speaker 2: Good, the sourcing challenges and you had some of those.
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  Speaker 2: How do you get around them?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was the problem that emerged in the second
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  Speaker 3: half of the year. You know, a lot of our
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  Speaker 3: manufacturing has done in three main markets, New Zealand, Vietnam, China,
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  Speaker 3: so you know that your first first frame of reference
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  Speaker 3: there is to make sure you're carrying enough inventory raw
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  Speaker 3: material inventory, so that you have some time to adjust.
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  Speaker 3: The challenge is most immediate. We're actually getting the material
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  Speaker 3: because some of our traditional suppliers actually stopped operations because
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  Speaker 3: they couldn't get the feats off they needed for their operations.
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  Speaker 3: So our people work really well to establish alternative supply lines.
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  Speaker 3: And then one of the fundamental strengths of Scaler up
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  Speaker 3: is the ability to formulate compounds for the productory manufacture.
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  Speaker 3: So our procurement people in a formulation people did an
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  Speaker 3: excellent job and adjusting to that we were able to
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  Speaker 3: source the materials we needed and able to formulate the
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  Speaker 3: compounds that we needed and again able to adjust prices
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  Speaker 3: and market to overcome the cost increases.
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  Speaker 2: Good do you get a couple of big Industrial and
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  Speaker 2: egg Is Industrial doing the heavy listing lifting or are
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  Speaker 2: they both working well?
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  Speaker 3: Both performed very well. First half stronger contribution from Agri,
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  Speaker 3: second half stronger contribution from Industrial, but both divisions contributed
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  Speaker 3: well to the result of the twenty six and both
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  Speaker 3: divisions with good prospects going forward.
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  Speaker 2: And locally you're riding the farm sector.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so in New Zealand, our exposure obviously to dairy
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  Speaker 3: is the main part of our New Zealand presence and
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  Speaker 3: that went well as you would expect. Our exposures to
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  Speaker 3: other parts of the New Zealand economy probably more in
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  Speaker 3: line with what you expect and see from other businesses.
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  Speaker 3: So you know, we sell product into the into the
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  Speaker 3: reef and construction sector. That was pretty flat. Our football
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  Speaker 3: sales in New Zealand were pretty flat, but certainly dairy
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  Speaker 3: was the highlight with good strong sales into the dairy
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  Speaker 3: sector over for twenty six.
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  Speaker 2: Good going forward, your bullish.
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  Speaker 3: I think we're in good shape. Mic. We can continue
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  Speaker 3: to grow the business. We've got investing quite a bit
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  Speaker 3: in new people in market to ensure that we can
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  Speaker 3: capture the opportunities that are there, and investing in our
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  Speaker 3: people in our development centers which are mainly in New Zealand,
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  Speaker 3: to ensure we can convert those opportunities. And you will
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  Speaker 3: have seen probably from a capital investment, we've been investing
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  Speaker 3: in modernizing and increasing our capacities in our factory. So yeah,
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  Speaker 3: we're in good shape.
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  Speaker 2: Good stuff. You are an uplifting presence on this program
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  Speaker 2: for a Friday morning, and I appreciate your time. Congratulations
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  Speaker 2: on your success. Lem who's the scaler up CEO.
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