Latest / Best of Business / Mark Troughear: Freightways CEO on the company's revenue going up despite economic downturn

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Mark Troughear: Freightways CEO on the company's revenue going up despite economic downturn · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk ZEDB. Follow
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• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Bryan Bridge, career analygistics company Freightways has reported an increase
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: in revenue and profit despite the tough economic environment that
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  Speaker 2: they're operating in. At the moment, the business has posted
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  Speaker 2: a half ar net profit forty four point seven million.
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  Speaker 2: That's up eleven and a half percent. Unfortunately for US,
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  Speaker 2: most of that growth has come from Freightways operations in Australia.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Mark trow here is the chief Executive's with me tonight, ho.
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  Speaker 3: Mark, Good day, Ryan.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: How are you really good?
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  Speaker 2: You must be pretty happy with that given the environment
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  Speaker 2: you're in.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, I think our team's done a really good job.
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  Speaker 3: It's Look, it's certainly tough out there. I think I've
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  Speaker 3: been through three recessions in this business over the years.
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  Speaker 3: Yea team has done a great job to win a
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  Speaker 3: bit of market share and help produce that result for us.
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  Speaker 2: What are you seeing on the ground here versus Australia.
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  Speaker 3: Look, it's definitely a bit more buoyant over there, There's
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  Speaker 3: no question about that. So customers over here for US
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  Speaker 3: are still trading at lower levels. We're not hearing a
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  Speaker 3: whole lot of customers talking about a short, quick turnaround
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  Speaker 3: anytime soon. That's why we've said we think it'll be
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  Speaker 3: a bit of a grind. Reality is an assy. It's
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  Speaker 3: just a little bit more buoyant customers over there, Probably
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  Speaker 3: half of them are growing, half of them are steady
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  Speaker 3: rather than gone backwards. And just whenever you're over there,
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  Speaker 3: when you're out and about, you know, there are people
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  Speaker 3: out spending in the restaurants and the shops and the
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  Speaker 3: restaurants are busy. So yeah, it's kind of night and day.
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  Speaker 3: I think as we see it, how for how long
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  Speaker 3: do you.
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  Speaker 2: And visit you know, based on the conversations you having
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  Speaker 2: with your customers and obviously that is a pretty good
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  Speaker 2: indication because you're delivering presumably the stuff that they're selling, right,
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: So how long is this sluggish behavior going to continue?
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  Speaker 1: To know?
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  Speaker 3: Look, I think each recession we've come out with over
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  Speaker 3: the year, come out of over the years, has been
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  Speaker 3: slightly different. This one here has just been a longer
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  Speaker 3: grind into it, and I suspect a longer grind out
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  Speaker 3: it'll be as probably those mortgage rates come down. There's
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  Speaker 3: a bit of that interest money back in people's pockets
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  Speaker 3: and they start to spend it. I think that'll just
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  Speaker 3: happen steadily and gradually. We're hoping second half of the
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  Speaker 3: year for us, maybe around May June we start to
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  Speaker 3: get a little bit of signs device but it'll just
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  Speaker 3: be slow. I don't think it'll happen dramatically.
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  Speaker 2: In the meantime. Do you try and go after more
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  Speaker 2: business in Australia? Do you try and expand there more?
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  Speaker 3: Well, if we try and expand everywhere, so everywhere we
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  Speaker 3: are we try and grow. We have plans for our
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  Speaker 3: teams to grow in every business we're in, so they
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  Speaker 3: won't change regardless of the country. But certainly Australia there's
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  Speaker 3: a lot of opportunity to acquire businesses as well. Still
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  Speaker 3: a pretty fragmented market, a lot of operators in that
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  Speaker 3: express transport market in Australia, and the market is realistically
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  Speaker 3: eight to nine times bigger than ours here in New
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  Speaker 3: Zealand because of higher pricing, greater distances. So yeah, there's
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  Speaker 3: a heap of opportunities over there, more than there are
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  Speaker 3: in New Zealand.
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  Speaker 2: To be fair, government here mark very open, at least
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  Speaker 2: they tell us they're very open to ideas for growth
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  Speaker 2: changes that could be made, to legislation, to operating environment,
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  Speaker 2: anything on your wish list.
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  Speaker 3: Well, look, I think some of the stuff they've announced
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  Speaker 3: about infrastructure getting going on, that's that's really important. Stuff.
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  Speaker 3: Getting performance out of the government's balance sheet is really important.
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  Speaker 3: They own a bunch of companies state owned enterprises, some
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  Speaker 3: of which compete with us. Get some performance out of them,
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  Speaker 3: I reckon that would help.
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  Speaker 1: You.
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  Speaker 3: If I contrast with Australia, I think they have a
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  Speaker 3: pretty good habit of spending the way out of recessions.
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  Speaker 3: And let's face it, they generate a lot of wealth
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  Speaker 3: out of mining, so that they splash the money around
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  Speaker 3: a bit and they do spend their way out to
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  Speaker 3: some extent. But I think our government, you know, are
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  Speaker 3: probably doing the right things. That's just how can we
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  Speaker 3: do it a bit harder, bit faster.
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  Speaker 2: What do you think they should do with nz POST?
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  Speaker 3: I think they should, for a sad demand performance equivalent
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  Speaker 3: to the nearest competitor, which is US, which is what
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  Speaker 3: they're obliged to do under the State Owned Enterprises Act.
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  Speaker 2: But they're not.
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  Speaker 3: No, Well, I think that's where I would start.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks, So much Mark, Great to have you on the show.
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  Speaker 2: Congratulations on what is a you know, a pretty reasonable
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  Speaker 2: result given the environment that you're in. Nice to have
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  Speaker 2: you on the show. That's Mark trow here. He's the
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  Speaker 2: Freightway's chief executive.
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