Latest / Best of Business / Will Burrett: Landcorp Chief Operating Officer on the Government zeroing in on the company's performance

Transcript

Will Burrett: Landcorp Chief Operating Officer on the Government zeroing in on the company's performance · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks B Follow
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio. Now.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: The government zeroing in on Land Corp as an example
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: of state owned enterprises that are underperforming. It singled out
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: a number of soees that it says has performed poorly.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: This is Treasury over the last five years and the
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: worst performers are New Zealand Post met Service, Cordier and Landcorp.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: LANDCRP was also criticized for the big pay package of
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: its chief executive. The CEE couldn't come on the show tonight,
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: but we have Will Burrett, the Chief operating officer of Landcorp.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: Hi, Will good right here, Thanks for having me.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Do you think that CEO pay or CE
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: pay should go up when profits fall as dramatically as
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: your profit has.
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: I'll look them. I'm not here to talk about my
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: boss as a salary, but talk about it just hypothetically.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Let's say, any old, any old SOE, should the performance
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: of the ce be tied to the performance of the
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: of the SOE.
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: Look, I think that's that's for a matter of the
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: board to work with a ce I'm here to talk
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: about our performance and where we're heading moving forward.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Well, tell me about your performance, good or bad.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: Look, we've been on a journey, to be honest, hither
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: and that's pretty cliche, but you know, I'm really proud
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: of the last day, en months and where the business
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: has just laser focused on on core business principles of
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: you know, animals, pasture, wastage and and internal optimizations. So
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: you know, we've we've we've come a long way. We've
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: focused on our structure, on our systems and the performance
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: culture that I think we're already starting to embed some
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: really good things.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: And if you're focused on doing your business properly, what
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: have you got rid of? There wasn't part of.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: That, I think just noise, you know, I think we
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: have Well, look, we've we've gone back to basics. If
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: I'm honest, you know, we're not the only agricultural entity
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: over the last week while it's had to reset itself,
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: focused capital allocation back to the core, strip away some
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: noise from the business and actually, well look it's it's
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: actually just focusing on the core principles of farming. So
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: going back to basics.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Making sure we have you stripped away.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: Well, we've focused on putting capital back into the business
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: heather and.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Not has somebody told you not to give specifics?
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: No, not at all?
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Do you not know what?
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah? We have stripped away noise, so and what is
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: I'm just going to.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Try one more time and then I'm going to give up.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: What is that noise?
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: But we've we've focused capital back into behind farm gate
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: rather than post farm gate, So we've we've reduced you know,
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: palming food, that's that's been consolidated down and where we
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: are driving you know, the other areas of those post
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: post farm gate investments harder. But then behind farm gate,
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: which is the bulk of their investment in the asset
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: across the two billion assets were focused on driving physical
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: performance which we can control and we can control costs.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Do you still milk deer?
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: Yes? We do?
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Is that a good idea?
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: I look, that's something that you know you ask around
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: the purpose of PAMU and we are here to try
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: and challenge some things.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: See problem though, isn't it will because a normal father
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: farmer is not going to faff around milking deer, are they?
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: They're just going to get on with doing sheep and
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: beef and dairy and do you think maybe is that
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: part of the problem that what we think you are
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: is the government's farmers, but what you think you are
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: is experimenting.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: We've got to put a percentage of the asset that
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: we've got into things that are going to trial and
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: test system designs and potentially new horizons.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: That are you forced through through legislation.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: To do that. We are forced to make sure that
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: we're driving a return, and that's what we're focusing on.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, Well, are you forced through legislation or
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: through regulation, or through any kind of rule to put
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: a percentage of what you are doing into you know, experimenting.
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: I'd say we are trying to help the industry and
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: seeking out you. Okay, that's from of these things.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: So you're just doing that wacky stuff of your own.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Bat Now, we had we had Grant McCallum on who
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: you'll be aware of as a farmer himself but also
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: National Party MP. So let's be honest, right, he's got
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: some skin in the game here. They're obviously lining you
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: people up to sell you down, so he's doing he's
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: doing the government's job here, but he reckons that you
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: guys should be providing a net operating profit of maybe
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: minimum hundred MILLI, but you know, closer to two hundred
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: million and it's only twenty mil So how how do
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: you explain.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: That we've we've positioned a record profit coming out this
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: financial year of between forty one and fifty one million.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: That'll be firmed up and later later of August, I
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: think late August will be confirming that. And then we've
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: we've got an sci that we were or a statement
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: of corporate intent, which is effectively our budget hither over
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: the next three years that we'll be landing with the
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: Minister later on this month, so that paints the pathway,
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: and that pathway speaks directly to our focus back on
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: the core business. So you know, I'll probably let those
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: numbers speak to themselves when they come out.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: Okay, well, thank you, appreciate your time. That's Will Burrett,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: the Chief operating Officer of land
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Carp For more from News Talks ed B listen live
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: on air or online, and keep our shows with you
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio