It has been a long time between drinks for me at Scott's new expanded factory in Kaikouri Valley in Dunedin. It was five years ago that I was last there at an AGM! This was the first 'live' AGM meeting since 2019 due to Covid-19, although it was a hybrid meeting with a whole row of techno-kids with their electronics along the back row of the meeting room, simulcasting the meeting 'live on the net'. There was a single reporter/photographer from the ODT too, not something guaranteed at AGMs these days, where 'reporting on the AGM' often consists of rehashing the company's own press release.
I think it is worth recording the 'departures' of a couple of Scott Technology stalwarts that I became aware of during the meeting, even though nothing was said officially.
1/ "Greame James Marsh" former director of Scotts for 38 years (1969-2007) and chairman for 32 of those, has died aged 88 in June 2022.
https://www.tributes.co.nz/ViewMyTribute.aspx?id=17483
2/ "Ian Devereux" died aged 80 early in the first lock-down in April 2020. Ian was the founder of Rocklabs, the globally significant "mining resource adjunct" company acquired by Scott Technology in 2008, upon Ian's retirement from the business. I think it is fair to say that since acquisition, Rocklabs has been the star performing division of Scotts.
https://notices.nzherald.co.nz/nz/ob...?pid=196083539
Details of the AGM addresses, I could not find on the Scott Investor Relations website. However, they are here:
https://www.nzx.com/announcements/402921
I don't see any point in rehashing what was said when you can go to the link of the original. One clarification made was of the $190m of forward orders reported (the highest in the company's history), $50m was from controlling shareholder JBS, $60m fitted under the header of 'standard equipment' (which means higher profit margins), leaving $80m worth of 'other business'.
During question time.
1/ A shareholder named "David Marsh", who looked like a younger edition of whom I later determined to be his father Graeme Marsh, asked for some more details on the Caterpillar deal. I have summarised CEO JKs answer to this, along with some thoughts of my own, in post 1022.
2/ A shareholder, who later identified herself as the late Ian Devereux's sister, said she was pleased to see two women at the top table and that she would be returning next year to press for more gender equality on the board. Gender equality on the day was boosted by the three male JBS appointees only being represented via video link, as was Australian based director Derek Charge. And the fact that one top desk person, company no.3, director of marketing and people, Casey Jenkins, wasn't actually a board member.
Nevertheless Scott Technology, in partnership with the University of Canterbury, did launch a "Women in Engineering Scholarship", showing that their push for more women to be involved in the company was not just lip service.
3/ A shareholder asked what was the underlying 'market force' in companies ordering new packaging solutions from Scott's Alvey division in Europe. The answer: A trend to much larger 'mega warehouses', with more and a greater variety of goods being shipped through one site. JK let slip that Pfizer in Europe was one of their customers.
4/ A shareholder asked about material cost over-runs and how this might affect the profitability of these larger installations. JK said that in Europe they were now including a 'steel index clause' that allowed variability in the contract price, depending on where the global steel price was at the time of project construction and delivery.
After the meeting we had a brief tour of the expanded workshop. I had a chat to Andrew Arnold, head of meat processing that lead the tour. He was very satisfied with progress being made on the automated beef boning room. The workshop floor employees had gone home by this point. But we saw a couple of robots being evaluated for beef boning in what looked like a small R&D section of the workshop. There was also a very large piece of pork boning equipment being lined up ready to ship.
After the meeting there was the usual 'superior spread' of small eats and drinks. But the turnout of shareholders to indulge was only around half that of previous pre-Covid years. I reckon the workers on the floor would have enjoyed a pretty impressive array of 'leftover lunch' the next day.