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Speaker 1: Bryan Bridge career.

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Speaker 2: Anagistics company, Freightways has reported an increase in revenue and

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Speaker 2: profit despite the tough economic environment that they're operating in.

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Speaker 2: At the moment, the business has posted a half your

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Speaker 2: net profit forty four point seven million. That's up eleven

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Speaker 2: and a half percent. Unfortunately for US, most of that

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Speaker 2: growth has come from Freightways operations in Australia. Mark trow

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Speaker 2: here is the chief executives with me tonight.

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Speaker 1: Ho Mark, Good day, Ryan, 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 1: Yeah, Look, I think our team's done a really good job.

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Speaker 1: It's Look, it's certainly tough out there. I think I've

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Speaker 1: been through three recessions in this business over the years. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: team has done a great job to win a bit

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Speaker 1: 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 1: Look, it's definitely a bit more buoyant over there, There's

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Speaker 1: no question about that. So customers over here for US

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Speaker 1: are still trading at lower levels. We're not hearing a

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Speaker 1: whole lot of customers talking about a short, quick turnaround

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Speaker 1: anytime soon. That's why we've said we think it'll be

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Speaker 1: a bit of a grind. Reality is an Aussie it's

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Speaker 1: just a little bit more buoyant customers over there, Probably

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Speaker 1: half of them are growing, half of them are steady

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Speaker 1: rather than gone backwards. And just whenever you're over there,

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Speaker 1: when you're out and about, you know, there are people

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Speaker 1: out spending in the restaurants and the shops and the

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Speaker 1: restaurants are busy. So yeah, it's kind of night and day.

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Speaker 1: I think as we see it.

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Speaker 2: How for how long do you envisit you know, based

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Speaker 2: on the conversations you have having with your customers, and

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Speaker 2: obviously that is a pretty good indication because you're delivering

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Speaker 2: presumably the stuff that they're selling, right, So how long

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Speaker 2: is this sluggish behavior going to continue?

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Speaker 1: To know? Look, I think each recession we've come out

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Speaker 1: with over the year, come out of over the years,

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Speaker 1: has been slightly different. This one here has just been

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Speaker 1: a longer grind into it, and I suspect a longer

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Speaker 1: grind out it'll be as probably those mortgage rates come down,

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Speaker 1: there's a bit of that interest money back in people's

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Speaker 1: pocket and they still have to spend it. I think

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Speaker 1: that'll just happen steadily and gradually. We're hoping second half

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Speaker 1: of the year for us, maybe around May June we

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Speaker 1: start to get a little bit of signs of life,

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Speaker 1: but it'll just 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 1: Well, if we try and expand everywhere, so everywhere we

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Speaker 1: are we try and grow. We have plans for our

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Speaker 1: teams to grow in every business we're in, so they

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Speaker 1: won't change regardless of the country, but certainly Australia there

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of opportunity to acquire businesses as well.

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Speaker 1: Still a pretty fragmented market, a lot of operators in

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Speaker 1: that express transport market in Australia, and the market is

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Speaker 1: realistically eight to nine times bigger than ours here in

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Speaker 1: New Zealand because of higher pricing, greater distances. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's a heap of opportunities over there, more than there

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Speaker 1: are 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 1: Well, look, I think some of the stuff they've announced

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Speaker 1: about infrastructure getting going on, that's that's really important stuff.

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Speaker 1: Getting performance out of the government's balance sheet is really important.

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Speaker 1: They own a bunch of companies state owned enterprises, some

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Speaker 1: of which compete with us. Get some performance out of them,

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Speaker 1: I reckon that would help you. If I contrast with Australia,

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Speaker 1: I think they have a pretty good habit of spending

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Speaker 1: the way out of recessions. And let's face it, they

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Speaker 1: generate a lot of wealth out of mining, so that

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Speaker 1: they splash the money around a bit and they do

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Speaker 1: spend their way out to some extent. But I think

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Speaker 1: our government, you know, probably doing the right things. It's

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Speaker 1: just how can we 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 1: I think they should for a sad demand performance equivalent

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Speaker 1: of the nearest competitor, which is US, which is what

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Speaker 1: 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 1: Well, I think that's where i'd start.

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Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Mark, great to have you on the show,

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Speaker 2: and congratulations on what is a you know, a pretty

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Speaker 2: reasonable result given the environment that you're in. Nice to

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Speaker 2: have you on the show. That's Mark trow here. He's

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Speaker 2: the Freightways Chief Executive.

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Speaker 1: For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive. Listen live to

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Speaker 1: news talks.

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