New Zealand’s largest company has warned it will lose as much as $675m this year. What has happened in dairying and are we doomed? What has Fonterra said? Fonterra Co-operative Group has given farmers and the markets an update on its financial situation. It says it will make a whopping loss for the year of … Read more
The NBR’s Rich List is always a big day for New Zealand’s wealthy elite. So who’s on it, who’s up, who’s down, and how did they get there? Here are 10 things we learned. Technology still isn’t a golden ticket. Among the top 50 entries, there are a grand total of four tech entries. And of … Read more
Is Slack really the force for productivity it claims to be, or just another form of social media in disguise? Jihee Junn talks to Slack co-founder and chief technology officer Cal Henderson on the right (and wrong) ways to use his messaging platform. Every morning, Cal Henderson spends around 50 minutes walking to work, not … Read more
Adrian Orr has brought out the big guns to put a sorely needed bomb under the New Zealand economy and now the government needs to do its bit, a top economist says. The Reserve Bank’s decision to slash interest rates is a good move that shouldn’t come as a surprise, Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr … Read more
New Zealand’s biggest ISP said it would prefer to see intervention by the censor’s office, but in light of 8chan’s role in terrorism from Christchurch to Texas, access would be blocked should the site resurface. New Zealand’s biggest internet service provider says it will block 8chan after the extremist website was implicated in the white … Read more
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Douglas Pharmaceuticals’ Dr Peter Surman and Simone Hollier. Did you know that there is a local pharmaceutical company … Read more
Last week we asked New Zealand CEOs whether greed is still good. In the second part of our series on the ethics of NZ businesses, we put them on the spot over whether short term profits trump long term environmental impacts. “If I had a choice I would much prefer not to sell fossil fuels … Read more
A bizarre postscript is under way in the saga of Cameron Slater’s notorious blog shutdown. Alex Braae reports. Liquidators have fired a public shot at Juana Atkins, the wife of Cameron Slater, who has taken over the company behind the now defunct Whaleoil blog. Go to Whaleoil.net.nz and you’ll find a long history of posts, … Read more
Vodafone just announced that they’ll be flicking on the new generation of mobile signal in four centres before the end of the year. Hold the phone. What just happened? In an all singing, all dancing, all hologramming extravaganza at its Auckland HQ, Vodafone announced that it will be switching on a 5G network in December … Read more
The Lightbulb asks innovators and entrepreneurs how they turned their ideas into reality. This week we talk to Brad Parsonson, co-founder of Miuwi (pronounced me-you-we) – a platform that allows you to own a home faster and cheaper through co-ownership. First of all, give us your elevator pitch for Miuwi. It’s been described as ‘the … Read more
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Flamingo Scooters co-founders Nick Hyland and Jacksen Love. Around Auckland lately, and Wellington for a little longer, you … Read more
Longed for stirrings in the local investment sector are a positive sign that New Zealand businesses may be able to keep calling Aotearoa home. What do hydrofoiling freight boats, chicken-free chicken and a customer feedback platform have in common? Not much, except that they are the first Kiwi businesses to be backed by Australian investor … Read more
All the key details on TheMarket, The Warehouse Group’s $12 million foray into e-commerce. What is TheMarket? TheMarket is a brand new online shopping platform that was launched today by The Warehouse Group (TWG). It’s an online marketplace, similar to e-commerce sites like ASOS and The Iconic, but with an even wider range of products … Read more
The launch of satellites for private companies that sell data to spy agencies raises fresh concerns about New Zealand’s fledgling space industry, Ollie Neas writes. A satellite on board Rocket Lab’s most recent mission will collect data for US spy agencies, among other customers. The satellite belongs to US private intelligence company BlackSky and raises … Read more
Authorities are failing to probe the root causes of truck accidents despite a rise in crash fatalities, writes business editor Maria Slade. Police did not have the authority to investigate possible health and safety causes of commercial truck crashes for two-and-a-half years thanks to a hole in the regulations. From April 2016 to October 2018, … Read more
How do Wish products fare in real life? Jihee Junn buys and tries a bunch of random goods. If you’ve ever wondered what an online version of a $2 store would look like, it’d probably look a lot like Wish – cheap, disjointed, riddled with poor English, and stocked with a ridiculously vast array of … Read more
A film that positions France as everything New Zealand vintners should aspire to is looking at the world of wine through a narrow lens, argues wine writer Joelle Thomson. Does the New Zealand wine industry deserve a seat at the international wine table? It’s a big question with lots of different answers depending who you … Read more
Do New Zealand firms still think greed is good – or are the days of unfettered pursuit of profits over? In a three-part series we get business bosses to front up over capitalism’s fault lines. Rob Everett knew he was setting the cat among the pigeons. No, he hadn’t “gone communist”, the Financial Markets Authority … Read more
The Lightbulb asks innovators and entrepreneurs how they turned their ideas into reality. This week we talk to Arash Tayebi, co-founder of Kara Technologies which uses AI and digital humans to translate content into sign language. First of all, give us your elevator pitch for Kara. Kara translates different materials – books, audio, video – … Read more
Please take a moment to pay tribute to the glories of New Zealand hair salon names. Julie Hill consults an expert. A decade ago, a linguistics lecturer named Martin Paviour-Smith published seminal work for Massey University’s Linguistics Department, on what was then known as a “blog”. The subject: linguistic strategies used in hair salon names … Read more
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Vaka Interactiv CEO and co-founder Jesse Armstrong. This week’s Business is Boring podcast talks with an entrepreneur who … Read more
Outsized economic growth is becoming more of a threat than an opportunity in the Mediterranean tourist Mecca and New Zealand should take note, writes financial planner Chris Lee. Any business – indeed, any country – that does not carefully consider ‘right sizing’ is at risk of failure caused by inappropriate, unsustainable growth. Ask former Fletcher … Read more
The 2019 budget put aside $300m for venture capital for small to medium-sized startups with the hope it will allow businesses to grow locally and stay in New Zealand for longer. In a small rural town on the east coast of the North Island a cannabis-growing business is planning for the future. The first seed, … Read more
New Zealanders are as parochial about charity as they are about sport, with only a fraction of the money we donate leaving our shores or even going outside our local areas. Less than 9% of private donations in New Zealand go to international charities because Kiwis prefer to give as close to home as possible. … Read more
The Lightbulb asks innovators and entrepreneurs how they turned their ideas into reality. This week we talk to Aaron Jones, founder of Christchurch-based reusable bag company Zerobag. First of all, give us your elevator pitch for Zerobag. Zerobag is a New Zealand-owned company started 10 years ago that specialises in locally designed, high-quality, long-life reusable … Read more
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand, with the interview available as both audio and a transcribed excerpt. This week he talks to Clevedon Buffalo Company co-founder Helen Dorresteyn. Forty … Read more
Finance companies say they shouldn’t have to be ‘fit and proper’ even though in some cases they charge more than the planned clampdown on high cost lending. A group of finance companies that charges well over the government’s proposed cap on loan repayment costs is distancing itself from lenders who “cause the most harm to … Read more
Instead of buying a cuppa in exchange for a place to work, Coffee Supreme is flipping the script. For the last 25 years, Coffee Supreme has done one thing very well: sourcing, roasting, brewing and selling some seriously decent coffee. Running cafes is pretty much second nature to its business. Running a shared workspace? Not … Read more
Daniel Ziffer’s rollicking account of Australia’s Royal Commission into banking is a jaw-dropping laundry list of scandals, heartbreaking stories, and ‘gotcha’ moments. The Hayne Commission was set up in 2017 to inquire into and report on misconduct in the Australian banking and financial services industry. The result was a litany of shocking revelations including charging … Read more