After more than 30 years on the board of New Zealand’s largest retirement village and aged care operator, Ryman Healthcare, co-founder Kevin Hickman has called time on his oversight of a company that continues to go from strength to strength.
“After 34 years I’ve decided the time is right to stand down,” says Hickman, “but I leave knowing that Ryman is in great hands under Gordon MacLeod’s leadership. I have complete faith in the team’s ability to continue with the same values and aspirations that the company has always had."
Along with John Ryder, Hickman founded Ryman in 1984 with $10,000 in capital each and the intention of building a company that provided the best of care for older people. Listed on the NZX in 1999 after raising $25 million in capital, Ryman now has a market capitalisation of almost $6 billion and has paid out $690 million in dividends without the needed for additional capital from shareholders.
After reporting that Ryman’s underlying profit had risen by 14% to $203m in the year to March 2018, Hickman offloaded more than 800,000 shares on the market for $9.5m but says his family remains a long-term shareholder, with 35 million shares worth more than $400m.
Since stepping down as Ryman’s managing director in 2006, Hickman has had more time to concentrate on his valuable residential, industrial and rural real estate portfolio, which includes a 67% interest in Christchurch’s Airport Business Park, part of which is leased to Ryman Healthcare for $524,676 a year.
Another passion is thoroughbreds. With his wife Joanna, he owns the 110ha boutique Valachi Downs Stud near Matamata, home to some 80 broodmares. The stud’s pride and joy is the former top-flight race mare Silent Achiever who earned $3.5 million in stake money before heading to the UK where she has produced a filly to the former European champion Frankel, who she will revisit this year.
Made an Officer of the Order of Merit (ONZM) in 2016, the 68-year-old former detective was an athletics coach for 25 years and supports a range of charities such as the Christchurch Medical Research Centre and the Champion Centre for preschool infants.