www.viewpoint.net.nz - NZ Transport, Aviation, Logistics & Supply Chain Blog

The NZ Dollar is not high, nor bad!

I read an article out of Australia about their strong dollar last week. What struck me the most was how positive they are about it. The know commodity prices are up, they know they have growth and they know that they are stronger in the world market.

Compare that to the reaction in New Zealand. Exporters are screaming. Alan Bollard is driving our dollar up because of interest rates. When, oh please, will it come down?

Here are my issues with the way we view the dollar in New Zealand.

• The NZ dollar is not overly strong. The US dollar is very weak. Compare these four graphs GBP vs USD, EUR vs USD, AUD vs USD and NZD vs USD. Notice any trend? Those who want the dollar to drop want us to become worse off against the Pound, Aussie and Euro!
• We are missing all the positives. A weak USD means the US economy is weak, means we have more opportunity.
• The positives of a strong dollar is cheaper imports. Fuel is 25c a litre cheaper than it would be if the dollar was around 60c against the US. Is this the real problem for the government and Bollard. Cheaper imports equals more spending?
• The exporters (small ones) seem to be complaining about the dollar. We are never going to compete against China as a manufacture point for low value products. We need to build businesses herein NZ, that have supply chains elsewhere (like icebreaker).

I spoke to a couple of large exporters recently, they make high end, high value goods, they are hurting but for them it was part of the cycle of business and had more to do with hedging that the dollar. If you are selling to Aussie or Great Britain or Europe, even through the USD, the net result is not as bad as you would think by just looking at the NZD vs USD.

Finally, I don't claim to be an economist so don't take this all as gospel, and overall the tradeweighed index is up. But the graphs and Aussie attitude seem to speak for theselves.

Is it such a bad thing that we have a high dollar?

   

Supply Chains are critical!

An interesting article about the importance of the supply chain from the NZ Herald this morning.

Here are a couple of excerpts

• Companies no longer compete for market share by differentiating their products. Technology is now so advanced that almost anything can be copied. Communication is instantaneous. The result is products don't compete. Supply chains do.
• "Few people realise that 10 per cent to 40 per cent of the cost of most goods is supply chain cost.
• "For example, 45 per cent of the cost of a leg of New Zealand lamb sold in the UK is supply chain cost."

Its great to see Geoff Vazey trying to get some positive spin around the supply chain. 

It also has a bit to say about Trevor Mallard's ‘dream’ of building a stadium on the Waterford. That would have been a disaster for New Zealands supply chain.

Ports of Auckland move 685,000 containers each year with 45% being export and 55% import.

Agoge at the MHL Expo

By way of a mini advert. Below is a very basic video/powerpoint of agoge's key messages at the MHL Expo.

MHL Expo in Auckland

Last week agoge had a stand at the Materials Handling and Logistics Expo, which coincided with the ISN Safety Show. According to Forkliftaction.com over 2700 people attended, which I suspect that number is optimistic.

Forkliftaction is quoted as saying “Not everyone felt the addition of the Safety Show alongside MHL was beneficial. Louise O’ Neill of RT Equipment, distributors of materials handling equipment and forklift attachments, says the safety show detracted from the materials handling and diluted the quality of visitors.

She tells Forkliftaction.com News that future participation by RT Equipment would depend on whether the MHL show was big enough to stand alone next time.

She believes that while her company did not get any sales leads at the show, it was a good way to get in touch with their existing dealers and create more awareness of the company.”

Imagine going to an expo for 2 days and not getting sales leads!

All up it was very successful for agoge. It cost us roughly 5 times the cost of a magazine ad which might generate 1-2 leads.  We got a round 170 leads, with probably 20 - 30 very qualified leads. The leads didn't just come to us, we had to go after them and ask for details. A lot of stands just stood around hoping someone would ask them what they do.

There are a couple of things that the expo made me very aware of, firstly the lack of younger people in our industry and secondly the difficulty small/medium logistics companies have in introducing simple cost effective technology. I will write separately on both of these next week.

Ports of Auckland and Tauranga end talks

I know that this is now old news, but Ports of Tauranga and Auckland have decided not to merge.

From the Herald

ARH chairwoman Judith Bassett said the board had decided not to support Tauranga's merger proposal, otherwise known as "Project Mako".

"With the aid of independent advice and having regard to our statutory obligations we have resolved not to support the merger of Ports of Auckland and Port of Tauranga," she wrote in a letter to Port of Tauranga chairman John Parker.

Deputy chairwoman Joce Jesson said: "The merger doesn't align with ARH's long-term strategic investment approach for both this equity investment and ARH's total $1.4 billion investment portfolio."

The risks "outweighed any identified possible benefits in relation to ARH's long-term strategic approach for the company", she said.

It would seem to the untrained eye that Auckland Regional Holdings (owned by the ARC) became the sticking point. This is hardly a surprise and one of my key questions at the beginning was “Practically how do a listed company, and a delisted company (owed by councils) effectively merge?”

Way to hard!

On another note a collegue and myself went on the Port of Auckland tour a couple of weeks ago and the cellphone pictures attached prove it. A nice sunny day in the middle of winter, a ferry ferry ride around the ports. It’s a hard life, but I would recommend the tour.

CourierPost buys Roadstar

Express Couriers which is the joint venture between DHL and New Zealand Post, has completed the acquisition of Roadstar on the 1st July.

There overall goal in the acquisition seems to be to increase their service offer into multi-package and
palletised product.

“Customers are demanding we offer a full range of services including their multi-package and palletised product” says Jim Quinn, CEO of Express Couriers Limited. “We are delighted to have secured the Roadstar business to achieve our growth aspirations, and meet those needs” he added.

As a signal of the desire to ensure this new ownership is a success, Grant Robertson and the management team of Roadstar have agreed to remain with the business. Both Grant and his team continue to be passionate about the business and the industry, and are delighted to be part of a new ownership that shares this passion.

It is self evident that they will be seeking some synergies, and Roadstars branding is already changing. Even within the last week small changes have taken place in the CourierPost business to take up some of these synergies. I suspect you will see ECL move quickly to gain any synergies as I know they learnt a lot from the purchase of Ansett Couriers and XP couriers of old.

Freightways acquires MSS

Freightways has purchased MSS Records in Christchurch for $1 million dollars. It intends to merge the operation into its Online Security Services business.

“Inclusive of synergies gained by merging MSS into Freightways’ established Archive Security business, incremental EBITDA of NZ$0.3 million is expected to be achieved in the 2008 financial year from MSS.” [Freightways Media Release]

My read on this is that incremental means once the synergies are achieved. Synergies generally save money, so it is safe to assume that the EBITDA (operating cashflow) was lower.

This causes me to wonder what sort of multiplier Freightways paid for MSS against its existing EBITDA.

If the MSS EBITDA was
250k it would have been 4
200k it would have been 5 (my random blink would be this one)

Once they get the synergies (which Freightways will) it becomes a 3. Not a bad buy, one less competitor and 3 years to repay the investment.

Freightways said it is looking for more acquisition opportunities.

Toll to be 100% Aussie owned.

Well NZ Rail, come Tranz Rail, come Toll NZ will finally disappear off the NZ Stock exchange.

Toll purchased 10% of the shares from a New York based fund and can now undertake a compulsory takeover of the remaining 6% of shares in the company for $3 per share.

Toll originally tried to gain compulsory acquisition when it took over at $1.10 per share and has withheld dividend payments over the last 2 years.

The parent company Toll Holdings in Australia has indicated it may duel list its shares from Aussie on the NZX.

It is another lose to the New Zealand Stock exchange who appear to be having more delistings than listings this year. It is also a loss to New Zealand as yet another huge company will see its dividends sent off-shore.

Toll is the operator of the largest rail, road and ferry business in NZ.