A who’s who of Ponsonby Central: A business hub for film-makers, top chefs and tech giants

Ponsonby Central has become a hub for a diverse stream of Kiwi businesses. Photo / Michael Craig

Ponsonby Central is home to more than 25 hospitality outlets, a cinema and an array of office tenants. With rental income coming from a diverse stream of businesses, who are the names and faces behind the centre’s well-known food and entertainment outlets?

Blue Breeze Inn

Blue Breeze Inn occupies 3 per cent or 215sq m of the property. Head chef Che Barrington also heads the Chop Chop noodle house and is one of the company’s directors and shareholders.

Registered as Sparrow Holdings, the restaurant’s directors are Barrington, Nigel Shanks and Mark Wallbank, who are also Sparrow shareholders.

Che Barrington (left) and Mark Wallbank from Blue Breeze Inn. Photo / Babiche Martens

David Holmes and Shanks are joint 40 per cent shareholders, while 39.9 per cent of the shares are held by Scanlan Trust, directed by Shanks and Wallbank with shareholders Farry and Co Trustees.

Blue Breeze Inn’s head chef Barrington holds 20 per cent of company shares, while Wallbank holds 1 per cent.

Silky Otter

Registered as Otter Ponsonby, Kiwi cinema franchise Silky Otter holds 13 per cent of the tenancy space at Ponsonby Central, with Kiwi director Chelsea Winstanley among its major shareholders.

All the company’s shares are held by the Otter group, whose majority shareholder is Ahi Collective.

Ahi Collective member and film-maker Chelsea Winstanley is a shareholder and director at Silky Otter Ponsonby.

According to its website, Ahi Collective is “a multi-disciplinary group of investors and entrepreneurs focused on businesses centered around lifestyle and the built environment”.

“While we have been known to help with the money, our focus isn’t solely capital investment. We are interested in engaging in ideas and using our network to build something new.”

Silky Otter chief executive Neil Lambert.

Ahi Collective holds 82 per cent of Silky Otter Ponsonby shares. The collective is directed by Winstanley, Silky Otter director and chief executive Neil Lambert, Evan Hamlet and Ahmed Almukhtar, who hold 40 per cent, 32 per cent, 20 per cent and 8 per cent of shares respectively.

In March, the Herald reported on the cinemas’ screenings of Māori-made films for Cyclone Gabrielle relief, which were supported by Winstanley’s former partner and fellow director Taika Waititi.

Bedford Soda & Liquor

Bedford Soda & Liquor at Ponsonby Central.

Ponsonby Central is also home to New York-inspired pub Bedford Soda & Liquor, with TV and radio personality Jeremy Wells as a minority shareholder.

The bar is registered as Midnight Bell, directed by Sam Ansley and Matthew Nicholls.

Nicholls holds 40 per cent of the company’s shares, while AJLP Trustees, owned by joint shareholders and directors Alan Jones and Sarah Thorstensen, holds 40 per cent of Midnight Bell shares, with 20 per cent held by “radio service” company Double Junga, according to the NZ Companies Register.

Taskmaster, Seven Sharp and Radio Hauraki host Jeremy Wells is a minority shareholder at Bedford Soda & Liquor.

Wells holds 98 per cent of Double Junga shares with John Perrett and 1 per cent of shares solely. The other 1 per cent of the company’s shares are held by Tulsi Bramley.

Serato

The largest sole tenant at Ponsonby Central is Kiwi audio technology firm Serato, which recently moved to the premises and has also announced its sale to Japan’s AlphaTheta Corporation. Serato holds 26 per cent or 1800 sq m of the property’s rental space.

The company’s directors are listed as co-founders Stephen West and Alan Wilderland, with 100 per cent of company shares held by Serato Audio Research.

Serato co-founder AJ Wilderman with American DJ and producer Questlove during the firm's early days.

Yokohama-based AlphaTheta is the owner of the Pioneer DJ brand, one of Serato’s partners which spun out of Pioneer in 2015.

The Herald reported this week that the acquisition involved an Overseas Investment Office application, putting it north of the $100 million threshold for OIO approval.

The company won respect from film-maker David Lynch and others in Hollywood for developing a tool that could slow down or speed up audio without the usual side effect of changing the pitch.

Serato’s software has been adopted by a music who’s who including DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Beastie Boys’ Mix Master Mike.

Kanye West (2010) and Eminem (2013) both dropped the Kiwi firm’s name into raps, helping cement its success.