The Todd family likes to keep a low profile, a sentiment that seems to extend to Joanna Breare who took the helm at Todd Energy in 2014. Dr Breare also chairs the Petroleum Exploration and Producers Association of New Zealand (PEPANZ).
Todd Energy will doubtless be impacted by the government’s decision to ban any new exploration for oil and gas and PEPANZ hasn’t been shy about making its opposition known.
Although Todd Energy sold the retail LPG business of its Nova Energy unit for $192 million in 2017, the company remains New Zealand’s largest domestically owned petroleum exploration and production company.
Its website says the company has ownership stakes in facilities responsible for more than 75% of New Zealand’s hydrocarbon energy production including from the McKee Mangahewa, Maui, Kapuni and Pohokura fields.
The Todd family’s roots in this country date back to the 1880s and its estimated 200 members have collectively been at or near the top of the NBR Rich List since its inception in 1986.
Mike Todd (pictured), the great-grandson of the Todd Corporation’s founder, Charles, has sat on the company’s board since 1996 and became deputy chairman in March last year and another family member, Thomas Whyte, is another director.
But the family’s hands-on involvement appears to have ended with the retirement of Mike Todd’s father, Sir John, in 2011. Sir John died in 2015, aged 88.
The Todds’ first enterprise in New Zealand was a fellmongery and wool scouring business in Central Otago in the 1880s and later expanded into stock and station operations, meat exporting and grain and wool trading and other agribusiness operations.
The family was one of the first into the automobile business, importing vehicles from 1912 and establishing the Todd Motor Company in 1923. The company branched out into car assembly in 1935 and for many years that was its mainstay until it finally exited the business in 1987.
In what is now its major endeavour, the Todd family has been involved in the energy sector since about 1929 when it reacted to disruptions in the petrol market by importing petroleum and marketing it under the Europa brand.
The family interests also extend to property development, healthcare and technology.