The idea of paying someone by signing a piece of paper may seem foreign to younger people, but less tech-savvy New Zealanders are having to adapt to a world without cheques. When Kiwibank announced in May last year that it was going to do away with cheques from the end of this month, some of … Read more
Experts believe that New Zealand workers need more technology, not less, if we’re going to become a more productive country. It’s official: the robots are not coming for our jobs. Conventional wisdom has it that the unprecedented technological change the world has seen in the last few decades is resulting in wholesale replacement of people … Read more
The man who led the All Blacks to victory in the first World Cup went on to become a Rhodes scholar, political operator and business leader. Today he’s worried about tribalism and the Trumpian tendency to vilification. He sits down with Spinoff business editor Maria Slade in Sydney. Rugby legend, Rhodes scholar, business leader and … Read more
A Wellington startup is tapping into the worldwide move away from ocean-destroying sunscreens with a natural product. Sailing fans got used to seeing helmsman Peter Burling’s ghost-like face as he and the Emirates Team New Zealand crew battled to reclaim the America’s Cup in 2017. Red-headed Burling clearly felt the need for heavy sunblock to … Read more
Sales of environmentally friendly dental care products are steadily on the rise, but as business editor Maria Slade finds it isn’t easy being green. Sorry planet Earth I’ve tried, truly I have, but I just can’t do bamboo toothbrushes. The feel of the rough wooden handles in my mouth is like fingernails on a blackboard. … Read more
Wellingtonians claim that securing sought-after rental properties is becoming a battle royale. Are they over-reacting, or is the shortage of places to live real? Horror stories of even well paid young professionals going into battle to find themselves a home in Wellington’s cut-throat rental market keep hitting the headlines. It now costs an average $550 … Read more
Summer reissue: The lack of female faces in the hallowed halls has been put down to their traditional roles in our colonial society. Now the digitisation of historical records is blowing that theory out of the water. This story was first published on 11 October, 2019. There are 171 people in the New Zealand Business Hall … Read more
Rohan Hill and Ian Jorgensen are having so much fun running their boutique audio equipment firm that no amount of money could make them sell. Wellington electronics manufacturer Synthstrom Audible can only just keep up with demand for its flagship product. Engineer and musician Rohan Hill developed the portable Deluge synth/sequencer/sampler – “in my bedroom, … Read more
Jo and Brendan Lindsay made millions out of plastic lunch boxes and now they are figuring out how to give back to the New Zealand that fostered their good fortune. If there is a downside to selling your company for $660 million it is that people think you’ve suddenly been transformed into an altruistic ATM. … Read more
1980s corporate raider Sir Ron Brierley has been charged over alleged possession of child sexual abuse images, according to Australian media reports. The 82-year-old multi-millionaire is one of New Zealand’s most successful business people. Who is he? How did Brierley make his name? Ron Brierley set up Brierley Investments in 1961, a company which became … Read more
From Middle Earth to outer space, New Zealand business has covered a lot of ground in the last 10 years. Business editor Maria Slade looks back. As the world emerged blinking from the chaos of the 2008/2009 global financial crisis, New Zealand began the 2010s in relatively good shape. We’d recovered from our short and … Read more
From faster payments to ‘burden hunters’ that will hunt down and cut red tape, the government has announced a set of initiatives to make life easier for SMEs. Given it was actually quite good news the government’s announcement of measures to help small businesses flew surprisingly under the radar this week. Its biggest early Christmas … Read more
Rapidly growing Northland startup North Drill believes in making a profit so that it can hire more people and provide a better life for their whānau. Business editor Maria Slade reports. Ida-Jean and Bronson Murray are buying homes in Whangārei. In a region where prices are up over 9% for the year, there’s nothing revolutionary … Read more
Sustainable clothing maker Little Yellow Bird is poised to burst onto the school uniform market as awareness of where our wardrobe comes from grows. They just received the supreme award at the NZI Sustainable Business Network Awards for their work. If Samantha Jones has her way, every child in New Zealand will know where their … Read more
Fletcher Building has finally addressed the elephant in the room and it has caused no more than a ripple among its conservative shareholder base, writes business editor Maria Slade. Pania Newton, shareholder, and protector at Ihumātao, is now close to an old hand at Fletcher Building annual meetings. When she rose to ask a question … Read more
A leaked email from prominent share broking firm Forsyth Barr perpetuates a tediously old-fashioned idea of the way people think – and it isn’t even salvaged by wit or originality, writes business editor Maria Slade. Investment manager Forsyth Barr’s daily market commentary came with a seasonal extra on November 1. Atop the dull recital of … Read more
NZ phone companies and the government are setting up a system that will identify scam callers within hours and, they hope, stop them in their tracks, the Spinoff can reveal. We’ve all received them. The calls from strange corners of the world at odd times of the day. After I made the mistake of answering … Read more
A corporate undertaker talks top tips for making sure you get paid, reining in rogue liquidators, and having a heart for those who’ve lost money. PwC’s John Fisk has handled high profile company failures from Pike River to Lombard Finance and the Ross Asset Management Ponzi scheme. He also chairs the catchily titled Restructuring Insolvency … Read more
It’s setting up a high school and John Key is an investor, but leaked documents show the $380m education startup locks parents into tough contracts worth tens of thousands of dollars. A tutoring company with former prime minister John Key on its board is charging parents as much as $60,000 to chase the dream of … Read more
The Panama Papers exposed a world in which the uber-rich and powerful were able to hide unimaginable wealth. The reporters who broke the story describe how they did it. “When it takes a whistleblower to sound the alarm… it signals that democracy’s checks and balances have all failed.” The final words in the documentary The … Read more
A genetic test showing how people respond to common medicines has the potential to revolutionise the way doctors prescribe drugs. Business editor Maria Slade reports. Sleeping has never been my strong suit. Throughout my adult life I’ve tried everything from hypnosis and hot milk to yoga and the droning narrations of the History Channel, with … Read more
Ambitious families are spending big money on Crimson’s services – but top New Zealand schools say they provide the same advice for free, and are sceptical of what the highly valued startup provides. Business editor Maria Slade reports. Crimson Education has been a darling of the New Zealand startup scene since precocious teenaged co-founders Jamie … Read more
Will New Zealand’s largest construction firm have to write off yet more money over the troubled International Convention Centre project? Both Fletcher Building and SkyCity’s share prices have felt the impact of the devastating fire that has raged at Auckland’s half completed convention centre for over a day now. More than 80 firefighters continue to … Read more
Think you’ve got your KiwiSaver sorted? Try Kōura’s ‘robo-advice’ questionnaire and you might be surprised. If a person who looks like they know about finance asks you whether your appetite for risk is low, medium or high, what do you say? The problem is most Kiwis don’t understand what the question means, or the consequences … Read more
In their quest for a cashless society the Japanese have beaten New Zealand to its own next-gen shopping experience. New Zealanders are missing out to the Japanese on a Kiwi technology that is set to eliminate supermarket queues. The first store to implement the SmartCart cashierless shopping system will be in Osaka, not Auckland, despite … Read more
Are there really not enough women in New Zealand’s commercial history worth recognising? Business editor Maria Slade discovers it all depends on where you look. There are 171 people in the New Zealand Business Hall of Fame. Just 15 of them are women. It’s an eyebrow-raising statistic, given educational non-profit Young Enterprise established the Hall … Read more
The FMA’s annual sense check of KiwiSaver shows New Zealanders continue to embrace the scheme but the fees they’re being charged may not be doing them any favours. Who is the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) and what’s this report? The FMA is the government gatekeeper for our financial markets, and it is one of several … Read more
As disappointed farmers deal with Fonterra’s poor performance it emerges a new multi-million dollar cheese plant is hardly being used. Business editor Maria Slade reports. Fonterra once called it “the single largest foodservice investment in New Zealand’s dairy industry”. Now its $240 million mozzarella cheese plant at Clandeboye near Temuka is sitting close to idle … Read more
Simplicity has fired a shot across traditional mortgage providers’ bows – and says if you think home loan rates are as low as they can go, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Mortgage rates could be a whole lot lower, argues KiwiSaver provider Simplicity which has launched the cheapest home loan in the market. From November … Read more