Only a few months after Sir Graeme Harrison sold his 20% shareholding in Anzco to a Japan-based company and stepped down as chairman in early 2018, the company reported a 90% drop in profit.
It was during a visit to Japan in 1984 that he founded the Asian NZ Meat Company as a sheepmeat marketing business for the NZ Meat Producers Board. Ten years later, Sir Graeme led a management buyout of Anzco that returned the farmer-owned Meat Board $40 million on its initial capital investment of $350,000.
Early last year Harrison retired and sold his shares to Japan’s Itoham Foods, which is estimated to have earned him close to $60m.
Anzco’s fortunes have been shakier since Harrison left, with its 2018 pre-tax loss of $38 million its worst ever - though it said it was on track for better subsequent years.
Meanwhile, bestowed with an honorary doctorate by Lincoln University, Harrison has been giving back by funding a variety of scholarships.
He is again living in Methven in mid-Canterbury, close to where his great grandfather Henry farmed after immigrating from Ireland in 1876. Farming had been an intermittent family activity since then and Harrison chose to go back to it by buying with his daughter and son-in-law Michelle and Daniel Carson, both former city-dwellers, a hill/flat country cattle and sheep farm near Methven in mid-Canterbury. The family has completed a major fencing and development programme on the flats, with the hills now being tackled.
Harrison has said he hopes to provide an opportunity for his own grandsons and successive generations to take up the legacy Henry Harrison tried to pass on all those years ago.
Photo: Stuff
2018: $70 million