Latest / Best of Business / Mike Fuge: Contact Energy CEO on the company's full-year net profit

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Mike Fuge: Contact Energy CEO on the company's full-year net profit · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: The business basically of having the lights on and the
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  Speaker 2: heater on and winter Contact seem to be doing very nicely.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you. Net profits up forty one percent, revenues up
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  Speaker 2: twenty percent, people seem to like them. Connections rows three
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  Speaker 2: point three percent. So you've got six hundred and forty
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  Speaker 2: six thousand customers. Multi product customers up seven percent. Mike
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  Speaker 2: Poosh is the Contact CEO. He is with us. Mike morning,
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  Speaker 2: Good morning, Mike.
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  Speaker 3: How are you?
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  Speaker 2: I'm very well and does that all feel good? You're
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  Speaker 2: fizzing at the moment.
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  Speaker 3: Look, it's the result of a lot of hard work
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  Speaker 3: and building some serious projects over the last four to
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  Speaker 3: five years and working hard with customers. So yes, we're
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  Speaker 3: very proud of the result. I think it's something to
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  Speaker 3: stand tall.
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  Speaker 2: On Manawa for people who haven't followed this. You sort
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  Speaker 2: of integrate that you bought that. How does that play
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  Speaker 2: out in the future, ah lock, So.
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  Speaker 3: We're now integrating the business. But the big benefit there
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  Speaker 3: is the complementary hydro. They are what we call winter
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  Speaker 3: weighted and in the North Island and our existing hydro
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  Speaker 3: is in the South Island, and so the two portfolios
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  Speaker 3: complement each other phenomenally.
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  Speaker 2: Well, how fine a line do your walk as a
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  Speaker 2: company or as a CEO? We like successful companies. But
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  Speaker 2: your net profits up forty one percent and everyone's going
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  Speaker 2: to go, yeah, well, I know why that is because
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  Speaker 2: it kind of form a power bill.
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  Speaker 3: Oh look no, look the profits up and we can
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  Speaker 3: reconcile it back. It's due to those projects that we've
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  Speaker 3: worked very hard on building. They're innovative, the g therm
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  Speaker 3: or the base load, they're good for the country and
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  Speaker 3: we want to do more. So No, this is a
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  Speaker 3: result of investment, and we're investing more than what we
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  Speaker 3: actually earned and profit last year.
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  Speaker 2: Those connections when they go, I mean there's a lot
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  Speaker 2: of customer six hundred and forty six thousand people. Why
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  Speaker 2: do they come to you? What is going How much
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  Speaker 2: churn is there in the market.
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  Speaker 3: Ah, Look, the churn probably averages somewhere between eighty and
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  Speaker 3: twenty percent. We've got a good telco offering that we
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  Speaker 3: put around it, and then we also have what we
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  Speaker 3: call the good plans, which give people three hours of
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  Speaker 3: free power or the free power on the weekends and
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  Speaker 3: that helps people move their load and it helps them
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  Speaker 3: save costs and they seem to like that.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, the battery at glen Brook. How much of the
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  Speaker 2: future is our battery do you think?
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  Speaker 3: Oh? No, Look, batteries will form an absolute critical part
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  Speaker 3: of the infrastructure and the going forward. So there's a
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  Speaker 3: battery at Glenbrook. We've applied for resource Consent've got more
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  Speaker 3: batteries at glen Brook. They will take the edge of
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  Speaker 3: the morning and evening peaks and just leave the gaspeakers
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  Speaker 3: to run what we call the shoulders over the autumn
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  Speaker 3: and spring.
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  Speaker 2: And you've also got to out. I don't know if
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  Speaker 2: you've seen it, but at Prince King Charles has got
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  Speaker 2: a massive solar farm at Kensington Palace now in a paddock,
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  Speaker 2: and I saw it the other days. I just cannot
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  Speaker 2: visually get my head around it. They're ugly, is that
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  Speaker 2: a thing or not?
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  Speaker 3: Really? Look, you put them on land which is not
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  Speaker 3: otherwise going to be used, and just absolutely perfect. You
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  Speaker 3: can actually run agriculture in between the channels, but you
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  Speaker 3: put them on land which is otherwise So that's why
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  Speaker 3: we're putting it in the land round christ to your chairport.
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  Speaker 3: That's otherwise fallow land, so you may as well use
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  Speaker 3: it for something product.
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  Speaker 2: So no, one, it's not going to be a thing
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  Speaker 2: eventually where people go. You know what, There are just
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  Speaker 2: too many of them and it's ugly, so that won't begin.
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  Speaker 3: No, No, Unfortunately, New Veeenland, looking at the weather out
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  Speaker 3: there this morning, we don't quite have the resource. They
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  Speaker 3: will be part of the system. We will build a few,
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  Speaker 3: but looking at the rain out there this morning, they're
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  Speaker 3: not going to become the thing and dominate the landscape.
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  Speaker 2: The electricity Authority is I'm sure you will. We're announced
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  Speaker 2: some sort of investigation. What's going on. You got the
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  Speaker 2: concom there, You've got Nickeler in the background. But the
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  Speaker 2: vibe in the industry generally are things what are they? Tense?
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  Speaker 2: Business is usually Look, we.
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  Speaker 3: Always have to keep an eye on what stakeholders are saying.
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  Speaker 3: And so we acknowledge that. And that investigation was prompted
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  Speaker 3: by the stress in the gas market and gas apply
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  Speaker 3: and we understand that. But really, look, the big thing
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  Speaker 3: now we're booming in terms of renewable energy. Build. We
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  Speaker 3: want to keep building. As I said last night, it's
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  Speaker 3: created strong economic growth in towns like Taupo, and if
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  Speaker 3: we can continue out across the whole country, that would
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  Speaker 3: be a great thing.
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  Speaker 2: Good stuff. Nice to talk to you as always. Mike
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  Speaker 2: Fushi is the YouTube executive officer at Contact Energies.
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