Speaker 1: Essentially by twenty forty the population goes from four hundred
Speaker 1: thousand New Zealanders over seventy five to eight hundred thousand
Speaker 1: New Zealanders over seventy five. It's massive change in gemographic
Speaker 1: We're second largest home developer in New Zealand. I's aren't
Speaker 1: think for a time, but is the largest home developer
Speaker 1: in New Zealand. Yeah. Anything that can be done to speed stuff,
Speaker 1: are your time efficient means I can building villages faster. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the massive demographic push, I think you're going to find
Speaker 1: that this is not enough retirement village operators in New
Speaker 1: Zealand and fifteen years time and certainly there's going to
Speaker 1: be not enough care be it's in New Zealand, which
Speaker 1: is actually pretty sad.
Speaker 2: Krakoto. Welcome to Shared Lunch, brought to you by Shears's.
Speaker 2: I'm Garth Bray and today we're here in Saint John's
Speaker 2: in Auckland at the newest retirement village opened by Somerset.
Speaker 2: Now that's one of the three big listed operators of
Speaker 2: retirement villages in New Zealand, and we're here to speak
Speaker 2: to the CEO Scott's Schooler. More than fifty thousand New
Speaker 2: Zealanders call a retirement village home, but that is set
Speaker 2: to rise as our population ages. So what are Sumrset's
Speaker 2: plans to get a hit of that curve? Before I
Speaker 2: head up to the Penthouse to hear here's some important
Speaker 2: information you should always consider when investing.
Speaker 3: Investing involves the risk you might lose the money you
Speaker 3: start with, we recommend talking to a licensed financial advisor.
Speaker 3: We also recommend reading product disclosure documents before deciding to invest.
Speaker 3: Everything you're about to see and here is current at
Speaker 3: the time of recording.
Speaker 2: Scott, thanks for having us to the Penthouse. From the
Speaker 2: look of it, where are we bright now? What is
Speaker 2: the spot and what can taust about it? Yes?
Speaker 1: So look we bought the site and s John's probably
Speaker 1: twenty fifth day now and so it's been a long
Speaker 1: journey for us to get to this point where it's
Speaker 1: open and opened late last year. So yet it's going
Speaker 1: to be home to break close to three hundred residents. Good,
Speaker 1: so you're in a pink house. It's having there pretty
Speaker 1: much for sites got three sixty degree of view start.
Speaker 1: It's a lovely, lovely sites amazing as.
Speaker 2: Views and if you are looking to try to arrive
Speaker 2: in this kind of place obviously going to have to
Speaker 2: have a pretty good financial plan.
Speaker 1: Yes, so that's a lovely part about this collection. We
Speaker 1: tried to sort of match like aspiration and make it
Speaker 1: quite aspirational. So like hopefully when people been up here
Speaker 1: they feel like it's buk turning up to a hotel.
Speaker 1: It's at Fields Groove Formal. It has a lot appeal
Speaker 1: to it. It's got flop fine dining and it's got cafe,
Speaker 1: it's got heavy theaters, gyms, all the subur pools, things
Speaker 1: you can think of. The vast majority of the product
Speaker 1: probably arranges them about which there's a lot for parts
Speaker 1: of New Zealand. But like an Auckland's actually in this
Speaker 1: location is actually pretty portable because.
Speaker 2: You tend to match whatever offering you make here to
Speaker 2: whatever local proppery prices are doing because that's where people
Speaker 2: are coming from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Essentially, like most people come into a time village
Speaker 1: within either two situations, either within a five K radios
Speaker 1: where they lived their lives or typically then they may
Speaker 1: be chaking a choice to move from a completely different
Speaker 1: location to be closer to family. But you'd find eighty
Speaker 1: percent of people would be within five kilometers, so you
Speaker 1: kind of want it to be highly affordable for those
Speaker 1: people to be able to sell their home, put a
Speaker 1: little bit of money in the bank and then come
Speaker 1: in and use that money to sort of enjoy retirement life.
Speaker 1: And so most of the time we're target ninety percent
Speaker 1: eighty five to ninety percent of the medium house price
Speaker 1: in terms of the products that we're building.
Speaker 2: It's interesting you mentioned that chain of needing to sell
Speaker 2: before you come into a place like this, because obviously
Speaker 2: the market's been a weabit so though probably more so
Speaker 2: than anywhere here in Auckland. How is that showing up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Look, I think your right to pickle on the
Speaker 1: fact that I think people who's confidence to be able
Speaker 1: to sell their house has been quite constrained in the
Speaker 1: last twelve months, that hasn't really sort of borne out
Speaker 1: in terms of their desire to come into a village.
Speaker 1: So we've seen lots of inquiry, like we would have
Speaker 1: seen more inquiry the last twelve months than we have
Speaker 1: traditionally previously. So inquiries pretty by people's commitment to sales
Speaker 1: contract is really high, but they've been constrained at ticks.
Speaker 1: Why they're a bulleted sell our own home and so
Speaker 1: look some of that as people take choice to sort
Speaker 1: of sit on the beach and wake three months six months,
Speaker 1: but until they feel like they can actually sell their house.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we'll work with that resident to give them options
Speaker 1: to come in. So it might be like we have
Speaker 1: situations we will allow people to move in early. They
Speaker 1: can move in whilst they're still selling their home, get settled,
Speaker 1: which is really lovely for them, and then be out
Speaker 1: of the house while they're selling it. And so you know,
Speaker 1: at times we'll give them six months to do that,
Speaker 1: and that gives them the confidence to sort of say, right,
Speaker 1: I'm prepared to give that a go in some of
Speaker 1: my house and look, at the end of that six
Speaker 1: months period, if they still and sold their house, would
Speaker 1: work with them. It's not like they're going to get
Speaker 1: kicked out on the street, you know, like we want
Speaker 1: them to be living life here. And so you're just
Speaker 1: constantly working with people in their individual situations to figure
Speaker 1: out how you can help facilitate them coming in. And
Speaker 1: that's been hard. But with your economy in the last
Speaker 1: sort of six twelve months, it's not as I said,
Speaker 1: that people's desire to come and has changed. It's as
Speaker 1: you're just helping them sort of make that transition.
Speaker 2: Those terms, Are they kind of a new response to
Speaker 2: the conditions or is that something you've gone to before
Speaker 2: in other times where things are tricky because you've been
Speaker 2: around for a while, right as a company.
Speaker 1: Look, it's a good question. Most of them are things
Speaker 1: that you've used in the past. So, like you know,
Speaker 1: during COVID twenty twenty, it was the same sort of environment, right,
Speaker 1: people were predicting housing market it was going to be terrible,
Speaker 1: and to be honest, it wasn't actually as bad as
Speaker 1: people predicted. But it's those same types of tools that
Speaker 1: you pull out that just facilitate people to come into
Speaker 1: a village.
Speaker 2: I guess if you can tell me a bit more
Speaker 2: about Somerset particularly, like what would I see here that
Speaker 2: I wouldn't see it another retirement village operator's place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Look, there's a few parts I think, like in
Speaker 1: terms of what we're proud of. Like the first one
Speaker 1: is we sort of pride ourselves that you come and
Speaker 1: live in a village where it's actually your home, so
Speaker 1: we treated as residents' homes. So like when our staff
Speaker 1: are here, they're ver even mindful of this is actually
Speaker 1: people's homes that they're sort of working with them. I
Speaker 1: think potentially that could be a different philosophy from other operators,
Speaker 1: where it's sort of more like this is our village,
Speaker 1: you're come to live with us, so you know, pretty
Speaker 1: much we stand in the background, facilitated as much as
Speaker 1: we can, but you know, almost try and be an
Speaker 1: extended member of their family to help out and stuff.
Speaker 1: But and so I think service like residents love their
Speaker 1: lives in our villages. Ninety seven percent of our residents
Speaker 1: are satisfied living in some set village, so we're very
Speaker 1: proud of that. The second thing is we build on
Speaker 1: a lot of Broadway locations, so you know, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of Keywis have grown up with the six
Speaker 1: and re scumiter section the grass. That's something we we
Speaker 1: like and enjoy building. So you know you'll see us
Speaker 1: in broad acre situations right throughout New Zealand. So we're
Speaker 1: probably the most geographically diverse of any operator throughout New
Speaker 1: Zealand and like to build homes that people can actually
Speaker 1: enjoy but agree in space obviously, when you come to
Speaker 1: a special place like this, you know you can't actually
Speaker 1: do that because you can't get enough land bututical village.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we are in a vertical village and we
Speaker 1: sort of only build one of those, probably eading a
Speaker 1: particular point in time, but most of the time it's
Speaker 1: broad acre villages. And the bit I love about that
Speaker 1: is that people got access to outdoor living pocket parks
Speaker 1: like barbecue is you name it, like mini gulf driving ranges,
Speaker 1: like there's just it's NonStop sort of ability for them
Speaker 1: to exist things and so we'll it be vegetable gardens
Speaker 1: is something the fever in and people's ability to then
Speaker 1: jump out of their home out the back door and
Speaker 1: kind of have their own little pattio area and stuff
Speaker 1: they can enjoy, their own little grass patch they can
Speaker 1: enjoys is quite special. So yeah, I think like there's
Speaker 1: a couple of things there, like you know, and I
Speaker 1: think probably the third thing i'd say is in kre
Speaker 1: like you know, we have integrated villages with care access
Speaker 1: on site and with that that's probably not that's pretty
Speaker 1: typical for New Zealand. Look, it's quite different for Australia,
Speaker 1: so we are quite different Australia on that regard. But
Speaker 1: in New Zealand, like here, we try and produce quite small,
Speaker 1: private homely care environments. So because when people are going
Speaker 1: through the latter part of their life and they need
Speaker 1: some care and support, I know, we feel like it's
Speaker 1: really important that they feel that that's an environment they're
Speaker 1: sort of safe, comfortable in. It's private, they have the
Speaker 1: same nurse every day, they have the same care giver
Speaker 1: every day, rather than a large hospital environment where each
Speaker 1: day you might be experiencing a different person looking after you,
Speaker 1: or you've got no privacy in the lounge because there's
Speaker 1: forty other people in there. So small private care facilities
Speaker 1: combined with broad acre living, combined with that sort of
Speaker 1: like lovely sort of service environment that we create, I
Speaker 1: think is kind of the three things that probably the
Speaker 1: most important to someone.
Speaker 2: Sat. All right, how's that working for the financials? Can
Speaker 2: you walk us through the numbers? I know you've you've
Speaker 2: fived you're half year pretty recently, so they'll all be fresh.
Speaker 2: I'm sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Look here last year, so we delivered our undern
Speaker 1: profit result of to earn six million dollars. That was
Speaker 1: up eight percent and to be honest, op eight percent
Speaker 1: in what i'd probably are my working career anyway, it's
Speaker 1: probably the hardest year I've experienced, and so for us
Speaker 1: to deliver a result up eight percenters, we feel is
Speaker 1: pretty credible. And I think at the same time balancing
Speaker 1: that with the ninety seven percent customer satisfaction and for
Speaker 1: our staff who are working for us as well, making
Speaker 1: sure that they are still engaged. And so we scored
Speaker 1: eight point one out of ten in our engagement surveys,
Speaker 1: which puts us in the top quartile of healthcare providers
Speaker 1: around the world. Getting that mix of sort of financial
Speaker 1: performance with good staff satisfaction, with engaged residents enjoying their
Speaker 1: lives living in our villages, that sort of trifector of
Speaker 1: things is really really important to us. But on the
Speaker 1: look on the profit side of things, that was really
Speaker 1: driven by the popularity. So we talked before about people's
Speaker 1: struggles coming into our villages. But you know, if yet
Speaker 1: you look underneath the profit results, new sales were up
Speaker 1: about five percent. Resales that's homes that people previously lived in,
Speaker 1: they were up twenty percent, So you know, the core
Speaker 1: sales for the company was still up twour percent, which
Speaker 1: was in a pretty dire property market. So that was
Speaker 1: sort of the genesis of the profit performance. At the
Speaker 1: same time, we were being pretty careful and cautious about
Speaker 1: making sure that we managed spend. Operating costs out there
Speaker 1: are pretty crazy for New Zealanders in general, but it's
Speaker 1: the same thing for a time village operators. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter whether it's rates, insurance. Trying to constrain some of
Speaker 1: those costs as well at the same time as making
Speaker 1: sure that we delivered that great experiences sort of key
Speaker 1: for us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just sort of looking around. I guess we've
Speaker 2: seen two of your competitors effectively going to private equity,
Speaker 2: you know, another one sort of if we're frank struggling
Speaker 2: we bit with an equity raise that's just finished. Are
Speaker 2: you still ruling out the need for that kind of
Speaker 2: capital raise.
Speaker 1: Yeah, look for our growth plans at the moment, we
Speaker 1: don't need to raise capital. Essentially, the way ours, our
Speaker 1: sort of development cycle works maybe a little bit different
Speaker 1: to some of the other operators. So when we build
Speaker 1: a broad acre site, essentially it might cost us to
Speaker 1: say one hundred and fifty million dollars to build that
Speaker 1: site the time. That what our aim is. So when
Speaker 1: we buy a piece of land, our aim is essentially
Speaker 1: to get all that money back through the first sale
Speaker 1: of those homes in that villages. So we won't purchase
Speaker 1: a bit of land and start construction if we don't
Speaker 1: think we can recycle our money out after we've basically
Speaker 1: built a village and sold it down for the first time.
Speaker 1: And so we don't as a business have any core
Speaker 1: debt that sits there. All our debt is essentially land
Speaker 1: working capital for building villages that are half complete, and
Speaker 1: then stock that we own when we're just as we're
Speaker 1: going to sell it down. So if you think about that,
Speaker 1: like if we were, you know, West Case Scenariot to
Speaker 1: shut the doors and say we're not going to build
Speaker 1: any more homes, the company would have no sort of coredette,
Speaker 1: whereas I think you know probably and that we feel
Speaker 1: is a bit of a differentiative for us, And so
Speaker 1: we can essentially go as fast as we like, as
Speaker 1: long as we're sort of keeping in mind that we
Speaker 1: want our number one ambition is to sort of recycle
Speaker 1: that capital back out of each project.
Speaker 2: You don't feel extra pressure to sort of step it
Speaker 2: up a little bit and maybe leverage a little bit
Speaker 2: more and go and grow a little quicker.
Speaker 1: And I think there's always a challenge there about can
Speaker 1: you build faster? Should we build faster? And I should
Speaker 1: we build faster? In Australia, I think as a business
Speaker 1: we've just got to do the right thing for the
Speaker 1: company at that particular point of time in the cycle.
Speaker 1: So you know, we give twelve months guidance on build rates,
Speaker 1: but we're not afraid to like slow that down. So
Speaker 1: last year, in the first part of the year, you know,
Speaker 1: we came out and said, hey, economy is not so good,
Speaker 1: property market's a bit harder, We're going to build fifty
Speaker 1: less homes. And it's much the same during good time.
Speaker 1: Better times, we would do the same thing. We'd sit
Speaker 1: there and say, hey, we can't get enough product and
Speaker 1: people are cuing up at the door, like let's say
Speaker 1: I should build some more homes in each village. And
Speaker 1: so it's about of keeping the company really sound and
Speaker 1: financially sort of stable for the conditions that you're trading
Speaker 1: with in and so we're very remindful of that, and
Speaker 1: we meet and have conversations as a leadership team about
Speaker 1: things like build rates every six weeks. So that's us
Speaker 1: just constantly sitting there and saying what's the economy, doing
Speaker 1: what's property market, doing what's house sales like in each
Speaker 1: one of our villages, and just applying focus to that constantly.
Speaker 1: So it is it. Look, there's always there's always pressure there,
Speaker 1: like asn't as a leadership team, we're pretty competitive, want
Speaker 1: to build more, want to generate a better return for shareholders.
Speaker 1: But at the same time as you're going to be
Speaker 1: careful around making sure that the balance sheets always strong
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: I just can't help thinking about the announcements this week
Speaker 2: around development contributions and around checking up the roma ye
Speaker 2: widely spoken about is good news for people who like
Speaker 2: building things? You people who like building things? Is it
Speaker 2: good news?
Speaker 1: Look a couple of things there. Development contributions are pretty
Speaker 1: pretty burdensome for large operators. If you think about like
Speaker 1: the infrastructure for this village and everything we do in
Speaker 1: this village. You know, like people probably don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of need to kind of access other services throughout Auckland,
Speaker 1: which was from what you're paying for with those development contributions.
Speaker 1: But it's and look at probably a little bit skeptical
Speaker 1: around some of the changes and freeing stuff up and
Speaker 1: making it better. Like we've seen the fast track process,
Speaker 1: which we've used probably now since COVID there was some
Speaker 1: legislative fast track fast track process to build big projects.
Speaker 1: And to be honest, that fast tracked projects process is
Speaker 1: almost at the point now where it's slower than the
Speaker 1: slow track process. And so you know, it's interesting in
Speaker 1: that I think sometimes you can see these good intentions
Speaker 1: come in, but they need to actually practically work, and
Speaker 1: so yeah, the magic and this and that will be
Speaker 1: actually how they actually operationalize that in a way that
Speaker 1: actually practically works.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: So we're in the sidelines and sort of just way
Speaker 1: to really I guess.
Speaker 2: I mean, you're a nationwide builder, so the idea that
Speaker 2: they're potentially going to simplify things so that there's more
Speaker 2: uniform codes around construction just makes a bit more sensible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, look love the theory behind it. And you know,
Speaker 1: like we're second largest home developer in New Zealan NOWS
Speaker 1: proably wouldn't think for a time of the rotor think
Speaker 1: largest th home developed New Zealand. So you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: anything that can be done speed stuff up. Essentially, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a better use of capital for us, more time
Speaker 1: efficient means we can build more villages faster. It is
Speaker 1: just in the practicality of with which yeah they implement
Speaker 1: this stuff.
Speaker 2: You don't acquire other properties then, really do you? You
Speaker 2: don't go into an existing operator and say will heed
Speaker 2: you to take you on? What is that a conscious choice?
Speaker 2: That's just not part of pretty conscious choice.
Speaker 1: Like the only time we've done that is in Nelson,
Speaker 1: we bought a village that the first ten to twenty
Speaker 1: homes been built already by another operator, and then when
Speaker 1: I brought that off them. But typically if you come
Speaker 1: back to that sort of conversation before about the business
Speaker 1: model and essentially what we're doing is building those homes
Speaker 1: and recycling our money back out of it via selling
Speaker 1: them down. If you have to go pay another operator
Speaker 1: who's already built a village to purchase their village, you
Speaker 1: can't recycle your money back out of that. And so
Speaker 1: you would have to keep going to shareholders and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to go buye these great set
Speaker 1: of retirement villages, but we need some more money for
Speaker 1: you to do that. And so when you look at
Speaker 1: the merits of that versus organic growth, organic growth is
Speaker 1: way more efficient. It generate's a better return because the
Speaker 1: investor hasn't had to putting more money in. So yeah,
Speaker 1: we our preference most of the time is.
Speaker 2: To build, provided you can get the land.
Speaker 1: Yes, but you know, to be fear on that. We've
Speaker 1: got seven thousand homes in our land bank, and so
Speaker 1: if you think of us as a business, we've got
Speaker 1: seven thousand homes built, So you know, like our landbank
Speaker 1: enables us to double in size. And if you think
Speaker 1: about through the worst part of the economic cycle last year,
Speaker 1: we're building seven hundred homes. Seven hundred homes, you've got
Speaker 1: ten years worth of build supply if you kept at
Speaker 1: that level. But in ten years time, the size of
Speaker 1: the company is going to double. The value of the
Speaker 1: company is going to double, and hopefully the shephros for
Speaker 1: the shareholders will double as well.
Speaker 2: So it's doubled twice in the time that you've been
Speaker 2: with the company, either a CFO and CEO. Is that
Speaker 2: about right?
Speaker 1: When I joined, it was two dollars later. Yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 1: it's probably four times. Yeah, in terms of assets, I
Speaker 1: think it's no, there's no reason why that shouldn't continue
Speaker 1: because if you think about, you know, you're building these
Speaker 1: assets and effectively there's sort of free assets. Once you've
Speaker 1: sold them down the ANTIA the company goes up. And
Speaker 1: if you track, you know, the NTIA have a company
Speaker 1: relative to our share price, it's a pretty sort of
Speaker 1: consistent track. So you know, the moment the share price
Speaker 1: is twelve dollars, you know, one would like to believe
Speaker 1: and hope that if the companies twice as big in
Speaker 1: two years time, maybe the share price might be more
Speaker 1: double that and it might be twenty four dollars rather
Speaker 1: than twelve dollars. But you know that's if you're sort
Speaker 1: of sit if your track over the last twelve years,
Speaker 1: that's the sort of history of what the company's been on.
Speaker 1: So that's that's the goal that we're chasing.
Speaker 2: Is that achievable just with the kind of organic growth
Speaker 2: you're talking about here in New Zealand with the sites
Speaker 2: that you've bought most recently, or are you looking increasingly
Speaker 2: that you are going to have to make good on
Speaker 2: the talk of development, you know, taking those agressive opportunities
Speaker 2: perhaps or growth opportunities in Australia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, look, we're pretty comfortable, Like I mean, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, doubling the size of the company in ten
Speaker 1: years isn't a bad thing, like for a company our
Speaker 1: size anyway, it's probably not a bad thing. I don't
Speaker 1: want to sound complacent, but I think during the better
Speaker 1: times in the property market in New Zealand, you know
Speaker 1: you might have ambitions to build exponentially faster in New Zealand.
Speaker 1: So we've got the land bank to do that, and
Speaker 1: it's pretty well consented. So you know, we don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of barriers to stop us building faster because
Speaker 1: we're broad acre developers. We've got fifteen villages we're building
Speaker 1: any particular point in time. If you chose to build
Speaker 1: ten more homes on each village, you know, demand's really high.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden you lift the build up one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty homes. That's quite material, right, that's a
Speaker 1: twenty percent left and build rate in New Zealand. And
Speaker 1: then if you think about our journey in Australia, we've
Speaker 1: got seven bits of land there now and opened our
Speaker 1: first village last year, open our second village at the
Speaker 1: end of this year, open our third village the year after.
Speaker 1: That's going to become quite progressive growth journey for us.
Speaker 1: And so again five of those sites are consented now,
Speaker 1: so that will quite meaningfully become contributed to our aggregate
Speaker 1: build rate, and quite a mature way. So last year
Speaker 1: we only built ten homes, but in three four five
Speaker 1: years time, we'd be building two three hundred homes from Australia,
Speaker 1: And so you start taking sort of those in aggregating together.
Speaker 1: And not only is this sort of growth, but there's
Speaker 1: probably quite a large level of exponential growth that's an
Speaker 1: opportunity for us as well.
Speaker 2: I suppose we've rered to talk about the demand side
Speaker 2: of all of that. We're all getting older, all of us, apparently,
Speaker 2: are we still on track? What to sort of hit?
Speaker 2: I think something like a million people over seventy five
Speaker 2: by when twenty thirty forty years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Look, essentially by twenty forty the population goes from
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand ye Zealanders over seventy five to eight
Speaker 1: hundred thousand year Zealanders over seventy five. It's a massive
Speaker 1: change in the demographic and I think even by twenty
Speaker 1: thirty the number of eighty five year olds goes up
Speaker 1: by one hundred and twenty five thousand, and so like
Speaker 1: it's pretty quack like it's pretty close by now. If
Speaker 1: you think in the next five years, one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand extra people. You know, like we need
Speaker 1: something like thirteen thousand extra year beds in this country
Speaker 1: just to cope with that demand in the next five years.
Speaker 2: So we're getting older. But the stats would also tell
Speaker 2: us that an increasing number of people work past sixty five,
Speaker 2: which is the point we'd retire, and lots of people
Speaker 2: want to stay in their own homes. So where's the evidence.
Speaker 2: I suppose that there is a really big wave of
Speaker 2: people that would be looking for the kind of opportunity
Speaker 2: that's offered in a place like like a summer set
Speaker 2: retirement village.
Speaker 1: Look might I've been in the company for probably twelve
Speaker 1: years now, and it's interesting, like you sort of see
Speaker 1: as change in medication, you know, advancements in medicine in
Speaker 1: terms of people with the way they live their life
Speaker 1: sort of has changed quite a bit last ten twelve years.
Speaker 1: But for us, like if you sort of correlate to
Speaker 1: their average entry age, it's probably lifted up about one
Speaker 1: or two years at the same time. So there's definitely
Speaker 1: a drift as people live there life and live it
Speaker 1: in healthy conditions, healthy state that they take a choice
Speaker 1: to come in maybe slightly later, but it's not like
Speaker 1: I don't think you see a massive trend of like
Speaker 1: people suddenly coming into retire religious sort of ten years
Speaker 1: later than what they previously did. It's a very slow
Speaker 1: sort of drift. And if you could have come back
Speaker 1: to the sort of reasons why people come in, it's
Speaker 1: often safety security, mums struggling to get up the stairs anymore,
Speaker 1: Dad doesn't want to mode lawns. Those things still happening
Speaker 1: in your life at a certain point in time. It's
Speaker 1: just you know, as at seventy nine or as at
Speaker 1: eighty one, you know, like and so I don't think
Speaker 1: there's going to be a mess of philosophical change to
Speaker 1: the age when people enter into villages. And if you
Speaker 1: look at that, just the sheer numbers of that demographic stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, like it's literally going to double the next
Speaker 1: fifteen years. You know, like even if you get a
Speaker 1: small drift, they're the massive demographic push. I think you're
Speaker 1: going to find that this is not enough for timement
Speaker 1: village operators in New Zealand and five ten years time. Wow,
Speaker 1: certainly there's going to be not enough gear beds in
Speaker 1: New Zealand, which is which is actually pretty sad.
Speaker 2: We've got the model for it, we've got the funding
Speaker 2: for it here in New Zealand. We're going to support
Speaker 2: people through through those needy years. Aged care we've got, yeah,
Speaker 2: we've got and we've got the retirement settings right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, retirement settings I think are good luck. There's a
Speaker 1: bit of work to be done. The sector is pretty
Speaker 1: folcused around making some changes legislatively to retire for the sector,
Speaker 1: to just clean up some practice from some of the
Speaker 1: operators in there, and to be fear's it's a very
Speaker 1: small minority such of things like you know, charging maintenance
Speaker 1: fees after people leave, or continuing to charge weekly fees
Speaker 1: after people leave. There's a bunch of little things like
Speaker 1: that which are probably not working quite as well as
Speaker 1: they should be at the moment. But generally it's pretty good.
Speaker 1: Aged care in New Zealand is pretty broken at the moment,
Speaker 1: so that is significantly underfunded. There is going to be
Speaker 1: a massive shortage of beds in five ten years time
Speaker 1: in New Zealand, and you know, no one's building because
Speaker 1: aged care is horrendously harding the funded at the moment.
Speaker 1: So you know, I think that is a challenge for
Speaker 1: New Zealanders.
Speaker 2: So as a business, you were just literally offering it
Speaker 2: as part of the proposition for the people that are
Speaker 2: part of you.
Speaker 1: Can we are Yeah, Look, we used to build slightly
Speaker 1: bigger facilities to cater for people to come in straight
Speaker 1: from a time of need independently into the village, but
Speaker 1: now because the economics and the lack of health news
Speaker 1: and funding for that, we're really just predominantly focusing on
Speaker 1: having enough bets to cater for people living their lives
Speaker 1: within our villages. And look, there's a synergy with us
Speaker 1: around continuing to make those those care fasilies smaller and
Speaker 1: more homely as well, which is great as well, but
Speaker 1: predominantly that's driven also by a lack of funding.
Speaker 2: Scott, you were a CFO, you become a CEO, A
Speaker 2: bit of a switch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, look at is quite different. My exec team would
Speaker 1: tease me about at times you've gone from being an
Speaker 1: no man, which is being the CFO role, and going
Speaker 1: to be a yes man and the CFO and the
Speaker 1: CEO role, I should say, but it's Look, it's different.
Speaker 1: I think you're in the CEO role you're trying to
Speaker 1: balance off expectations of residents and you're trying to make
Speaker 1: their environment lovely and enjoyable, and you know there are
Speaker 1: biggest advocates out there. You're trying to make sure staff
Speaker 1: as you really enjoy working for the company and feel
Speaker 1: like they're actually doing some good and at the same time,
Speaker 1: you're trying to bounce off that shareholder expectation. So you're
Speaker 1: trying to get that balance right. And at times, I
Speaker 1: spend a lot of my time going out to the
Speaker 1: villigious talking to residents, and you're almost like, rather than
Speaker 1: being CE, you're the chief customer advocate for the organization,
Speaker 1: and that's really enjoyable, Like it's real privileged to be
Speaker 1: able to do that for the organization at time at times,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's it's certainly different from being CFO.
Speaker 2: Does it leave any time at all for you to
Speaker 2: tinker away with your vintage cars? Classic cars? I should
Speaker 2: add rather.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Look, I have least classic cars now than I
Speaker 1: did because my son's racing and doing motorsports, so I
Speaker 1: had to sell a couple of my cars to pay
Speaker 1: for his race car. So but I do have a
Speaker 1: sixty seven Mustang, which it's been with me for twenty
Speaker 1: five years. My wife would probably tease me and say
Speaker 1: I love it more than I do my family.
Speaker 2: But that is not right.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's part of the family.
Speaker 2: Fantastic. Hey, it's been lovely spending some time with you.
Speaker 2: Thanks very much, Thanks for watching and for listening. I'm excited.
Speaker 2: It looks like it's Scott's shout. I finally get that
Speaker 2: shared lunch.
Speaker 3: Call me too,