- 02 August 2014
Annual Meeting of Shareholders 2014
Shareholders gathered for Mainfreight’s 19th Annual Meeting of Shareholders held at Villa Maria in Auckland on the 30th July 2014.
Chairman’s Agenda
Bruce Plested, Chairman, opened the meeting discussing the complexity of our business and the level of knowledge required from our leaders. Last month saw the 100th Board Meeting been held since we listed on the share market. The meeting was held over 3 days across 3 different continents. Bruce detailed this process to demonstrate the complexity of our business, the different markets and services we offer. The reason for all this information is to help you realise the special knowledge that our Directors need to be able to operate in such a diverse business.
He emphasised the need for New Zealand and Australia to continue to be strong foundations that will enable Mainfreight to develop as a global business. In the current year, 2014, New Zealand and Australia made some 82% of our global profit.
Managing Director’s Presentation
Don Braid, Managing Director, then broke from tradition and gave an unscripted slide presentation hoping this will give the audience a greater understanding of our business and finances.
2014 Performance
Don covered the financial performance of each region over the past year which led to our record full year profit see our 2014 Financial Report for full details. Operating profit is up more than 10% during the first quarter and Don emphasised that the challenge was to sustain this. Over the medium to long term we see Australia exceeding New Zealand’s earnings providing us a larger, stable foundation for further growth.
The Future
To continue this growth we will invest over $100 million this year in capital expenditure over seven developments including extension of existing facilities, land and purpose-built 
facilities.
Our Air & Ocean service is expected to play a bigger role in our growth, particularly in Asia, USA and in Europe. Further expansion into South East Asia is likely to be the next step into the Asia market. We are looking at a second branch to open in Thailand as well as considering Vietnam and Malaysia and the Philippines.
Our Culture
Before closing Don spoke about our culture and our team being our greatest asset. Our team of 5771 people in 233 branches are expected to take on as much responsibility as possible. Our future growth relies on us recognising and developing our leaders of the future. Training, profit sharing and promotion from within has and continues to give us the team to carry us on our 100-year vision.
See the attachments below for the Chairman’s and Manager Director’s presentations.