When Mainfreight reached its 40th birthday in March, founder Bruce Plested personally wrote to every person in the business to acknowledge their contribution.
This is no mean feat, given the global business employs 7500 people across New Zealand, Australia, Asia, the Americas and Europe.
But it embodies the ‘family’ values Mainfreight espouses – staff often get a Christmas ham, and were treated on the company’s birthday “the Mainfreight way” with a morning tea and a bit of cake.
When Mainfreight first started in 1978 it was a two-man operation in Auckland with $7200 in the bank.
The NZX-listed logistics company now has about 250 branches spread across 22 countries, 40,000 customers and a $2.5 billion market capitalisation.
When Mainfreight listed in 1996 it issued shares at 96c each. Its share price early April was $24.80, up 8% on the 12 months before.
Mr Plested, who chairs the Auckland-based company and is famous for taking a “100-year view” to business rather than a short-term outlook favoured by many business managers, owns 16%.
The company’s profit rose to $42.2 million in the six months to September 30 from $41.8m a year earlier, which was below expectations. However, management set the bar higher for the second half of the year.
Mr Plested, who enjoys fishing and conservation work at his $23 million 130ha Rorohara estate on Waiheke Island in his spare time, often uses his platform to try to drive social change.
He famously uses his annual address to shareholders to give his recipes for lifting New Zealand’s economic and social game by tackling issues such as education, the environment and housing affordability.
In the last election, he donated $150,000 to the Maori Party, after becoming disgruntled with the National Party, which had benefited from him in the previous election.