With their business days long behind them, the charitable machine that is Neal and Annette Plowman continues to roll on.
Famously publicity-shy, the couple continues to donate large swathes of a considerable fortune to charity. Their $100 million Next Foundation, which launched in 2014, has already given away millions to a wide range of environmental and educational concerns.
Recently, the Plowmans were honoured for donating $25 million to the Abel Tasman National Park. The ambitious, 30-year Project Janszoon (Abel Tasman’s middle name) works with the Department of Conservation to restore some of the area’s lost biodiversity. Recent projects have involved helping towards the elimination of invasive wilding pines in Abel Tasman Park, promoting the native Whio duck to school children, and better protection of native birds at Awaroa Sandspit.
The couple’s money comes from, of all things, a laundry and towel supply business. What became NZ Towel Supply and Laundry was started by George Plowman in 1910 and expanded by his son Jack. However, it was Neal who turned the company into the colossus it became; returning from the US in 1961, he set about applying advanced American business models to the family business. It was listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange in 1969 and diversified, and in the 1970s it pioneered Air Towels nationwide. Continuing its track record of innovation, in the 1990s it introduced barcode tracking systems. After the 1987 stock market crash the company was brought back into the family and renamed the Endeavour Service Corporation.
In 1998 it was sold to the American Steiner Group. The same year, the Plowmans’ Realm Trust sold national cinema chain Endeavour Multiplex to Australia's Hoyts for $39.2 million worth of Hoyts shares.
The pair retired soon afterward, marking the end of their business affairs and the beginning of their charitable ones. Early recipients of their money included the Auckland City Mission, Lifeline and the Auckland University School of Business, as well as projects for the restoration of Rotoroa Island in the Hauraki Gulf and Abel Tasman National Park. Many initially had no idea about the Plowmans’ involvement.
Among Next’s many environmental investments are Te Manahuna Aoraki, which will create a 310,000ha predator-free zone in the Upper Mackenzie basin and Aoraki Mt Cook National Park; Taranaki Mounga, which will free wildlife areas in Taranaki from pests and restore and revitalise wildlife; and Zero Invasive Predators (ZIP), which aims to help native birdlife through developing new methods of predator control.
Their educational investments as just as widespread, including the Springboard Trust, Talking Matters and Teach First NZ.
The Plowmans live in Kerikeri.
2018: $150 million