Old campaigner salutes panache

Sir Selwyn Cushing

Let's be frank," says Selwyn Cushing, "Craig Norgate is the 2005 edition of Ron Brierley."

That's a big call from a man who knows Brierley better than most.

And it's kind of uncanny given that, for this interview, Cushing happens to be sitting in his old mate Ron's chair - at the head of the boardroom table in Guinness Peat's downtown Auckland office.

He says Norgate is the kind of deal-maker that every corporate sector needs and that New Zealand has been missing since Brierley left our shores.

Last week, Cushing joined Norgate as a director on the Wrightson board.

A week earlier, he and his family interests sold their 19.9 per cent Williams & Kettle stake to Wrightson, ensuring the success of the Norgate-led takeover.

Cushing has faith that the former Fonterra boss, who last year led a takeover of Wrightson, has good intentions for the rural services sector.

This might seem ironic to some of Cushing's critics. There are those who accuse him, and Brierley, of being opportunists who made a habit of stripping assets, taking profits and moving on from the companies they took over.

Cushing brushes those comments aside as he has done many times in the past.

He argues that Brierley Investments played a vital part in the transformation of the economy. In the 1970s, there were inefficient companies wasting money the country could not afford to lose.

"Brierley Investments was a successful and energetic force. Its chosen role was one of industry rationaliser," he says.

"I had the good fortune to be involved with those processes for many years."

And the process still works "even if these days it's much more difficult because of the securities legislation".

Cushing said it was clear the rural services sector was ready for a shakeup if the number of companies and stores were taken into account.

In fact, it was the last obvious candidate for that kind of rationalisation.

(If anyone can think of others, they should feel free to send him the names and addresses of the relevant companies, he adds with a wry smile.)

Cushing's involvement in this last big consolidation began on December 10 last year.

That was the day Fonterra and South Island-based rural services company Pyne Gould Guinness (PGG) made their ill-fated play for a cornerstone stake in Williams & Kettle.

Cushing said he had a sense something was coming, there had been talk in the industry. Then the brokers came calling, asking Cushing and his son, David, if they'd sell their 19.9 per cent holding. They were told it was out of the question.

Fonterra and PGG proceeded to make a stand in the market. That, in turn, triggered the interest of Wrightson, which proceeded to spend about $21 million and trumped the Fonterra/PGG bid.

Cushing said Wrightson moved with impressive speed.

"I was at a meeting which started at 11am. By the time it finished at 3.30pm, it was all over."

Norgate had "corporate panache".

"He's a good deal-maker and he is getting the right people around him."

One of those people will, of course, be Cushing, who adds his 23 years of rural services' experience to the new-look Wrightson board.

Joining him will be other long- time Williams & Kettle directors, John Bayly and Gerald Weenink.

The three seats on the board helped convince Cushing that this was - as Norgate claimed - a friendly takeover.

Assurances that the Williams & Kettle's brand would be retained in its home market and that its successful FruitFed stores would be left untouched also helped.

But what struck him most was the praise Norgate had for the culture at Williams & Kettle.

There was respect for the company and what it had achieved.

The merger of the two companies will work, Cushing says.

"You've got a huge critical mass there ... on the other hand then South Island people might start to get a bit concerned at that."

Cushing believes that those South Island people - the good folks at PGG - are likely to make their own move at some point.

They might even partner with Fonterra again. The dairy giant needs to do something with its RD1 brand and selling it would not be a good look.

"Fonterra wants to be seen to be contributing to dairy farmers' success by reducing input costs ... if you take a profit and sell RD1 then farmers can turn around and say you've made a profit out of us."

But the Wrightson merger will work regardless of what the opposition does, he says.

"We'll make it work."

Sir Selwyn Cushing

* Born: Hastings
* Age: 68
* Education: Hastings High School, extramural tertiary study - accountancy.
* Career: 1960 - became a senior partner with Hastings accounting firm Esam Cushing.
* Directorships (present): Williams & Kettle, Wrightson, Cable Talk, Rural Equities, Rural Property Trust, H&G (the investment company he owns with his son, David).
* Directorships (past): Brierley Investments (BIL), Air NZ, Carter Holt Harvey, Securities Commission, Huttons Kiwi, Whitcoulls, ECNZ and many more.
* Hobbies: Cushing played violin in the Hawkes Bay regional orchestra. He is now chairman of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. An accomplished batsman, he represented Hawkes Bay at cricket for many years.

* Born and bred in Hawkes Bay, Cushing might have remained just a prominent local businessman if an encounter with Ron Brierley in 1972 had not led him to the forefront of the national corporate stage. At that time, he became involved in a BIL takeover of an asparagus company. By 1973, he was on the BIL board of directors and became closely involved in the series of takeovers for which the company earned its fame. He reduced his number of directorships when he turned 65 but has no plans to retire.