The co-founder and now chief product officer for listed Vista Group International has just set up a new charitable trust, Awhero Nui, to handle his family’s philanthropic efforts.
“Maybe if I put enough money in there, I will get off the Rich List,” says Murray Holdaway. He’s only half-joking.
The global company provides cinema management systems to eight of the world’s 10 largest cinema exhibitors – some 6350 cinemas in 93 countries in total.
Revenue has grown to over $100 million on profit of $20.4m while staff numbers are near 650 in the group’s various businesses that provide software solutions across the global film industry including cinema management, film distribution, customer analytics and business intelligence and predictive analytics.
Vista, founded in 1996, has had a compound annual growth rate of 30% since listing in 2014. The co-founders opted for an IPO on the NZX and ASX over a trade sale because they wanted to keep Vista a New Zealand growth story.
Since the IPO, Holdaway has progressively reduced his Vista shareholding from 25% to 3.66%, raising $46 million in the sell-down, including $5m worth in October 2017. His remaining shares are worth $26 million.
He says the stake is now at a level he’s comfortable with and he’s unlikely to sell more. A lot of the selldown was due to a lack of liquidity in the shares, he says. Staff and management still hold a combined 22% in the company.
In April Holdaway stepped away from the chief executive role to “return to his roots” as a software developer, taking on the role of ensuring the company’s research and development efforts on new products meet customer needs. Product development and customer service “spins my wheels” more than fulfilling the duties of the CEO of a publicly listed company, he says.
The give back
Vista launched the Vista Foundation in 2015 with well-known producer and director Roger Donaldson as its patron.
The foundation was started with the sale proceeds of stock held in a staff share management scheme just prior to the IPO. The shares legally belonged to the company founders but “morally” it didn’t feel right to take them, Holdaway says.
The corporate foundation gives several hundred thousand dollars a year toward a number of programmes related to the film industry, including helping film-makers learn the business side of film marketing, helping young women become film-makers, and giving young children from under-privileged families a chance to dabble in the art.
Holdaway says corporate philanthropy is very well-established in the US where Vista has a lot of customers and he’s critical of the lack of it among New Zealand corporates.
Philanthropy New Zealand’s most recent figures from a 2014 Giving report puts business and corporate giving at $77.2m annually, just 3% of the total in New Zealand. However, the report notes for every $1 businesses given in cash, they give an estimated $1.43 worth of sponsorship and $3.27 worth on in-kind goods and service.
“We decided we wanted to do something that was somewhat connected to where the money came from,” he says.
There is value in it for a corporate from public relations perspective, Holdaway says, but also “companies should be keen to show they have a wider mindset than just bottom-line profit and revenue.”
The personal touch
Holdaway and his wife have been giving back personally for years to a number of causes through their family trust but decided to separate the philanthropy side into the new trust. It will distribute the income from its capital annually, primarily aimed at helping alleviate poverty and provide education to those that need a helping hand.
The causes they support include I Have a Dream trust, which supports children to educational success, south Auckland education trust Affirming Works, and the Auckland City Mission.
They also donate to the Football Foundation, which has a number of player initiatives. A Manchester United fan from age 10, Holdaway is also president of the Three Kings United club, which he says is one of the country’s largest sports clubs.
The 61-year-old has also donated and is involved with an endowment trust associated with his old high school, Whangarei Boys’ High.
When you head a public company people tend to think “you’re a rabid, right-wing redneck but I’m anything but. I’m a very left-wing socialist, in fact,” he says.
Married with two children, Holdaway lives in a $2.925m property in Auckland’s St Mary’s Bay and owns a few other properties including a bach at Oakura in Northland.