Your Business: Bigger picture seen right from day one

Directors (left to right) Rod Walker, Jeff Excell and Will Rouse say Simcro is the company of choice. Photo / Supplied

Fast-growing agritech company Simcro is going to be one to watch over the next two years, as chief executive and majority shareholder Will Rouse prepares the company for a potential public listing on the NZX.

The Hamilton company has become a world-leader in providing customised animal health delivery solutions, such as safety injectors and drench guns, to the pharmaceutical industry.

Rouse, has been involved with the company, which was set up in 1992 by Joe Simmonds and Brian Croy, since 2007.

The former Citibank banker structured a deal for a handful of shareholders to buy out the founders and owns 60 per cent. Independent director Jeff Excell has 25 per cent and chairman John Dennehy 2.5 per cent. Research and development director Rod Walker owns the remaining 12.5 per cent. The private company's turnover is between $10 to $50 million but Rouse expects substantial growth in 2011/12.

"I'd be really disappointed if we can't double ebitda over the next two years," he says.

Since taking over in 2007, Rouse has not thrown out the baby with the bath water - the company was built on providing health delivery solutions for livestock pharmaceuticals - vaccine drenchers for cattle sheep and pigs, for instance. Over 90 per cent of its markets are overseas: 50-60 per cent in Europe and UK, while the US is its second biggest. Rouse has increased the volume of products and has expanded into the area of companion animals.

"Taking on projects to do with cats and dogs is an area that gives us significant growth. People are buying pets in droves at the moment," says Rouse.

Simcro is winning more business as a consistent international award-winner, impressing pharmaceutical clients like Novartis Animal Health, Pfizer and Schering-Plough Intervet. The Hamilton-based company was recognised last month with a 2010 Good DesignTM award for its revolutionary animal vaccine safety injector Sekurus TM.

Thanks to its growing reputation Rouse is able to negotiate better deals with pharmaceutical companies. "We have managed to get to the point where Simcro is the company of choice," says Rouse.

Simcro's people are its most important asset along with its IP.

"There were three engineers when I got here, now we have 14 and outside consultants," says Rouse.

The best engineers he finds are from New Zealand, often local Waikato engineers, many of whom have worked on farms.

"If they are sitting in an office in New York explaining a product to a brand manager who might not have spent time on a farm, they bring real experience."

Walker, hired by the founders, has been worth his weight in gold for the business. In August 2009, he won the prestigious Bayer Innovators Award for design and engineering. Another more recent member of the staff, who will be grooming the company for a potential float, is finance and operations director Nigel Hazelwood.

Rouse says the company has been prepared for bigger things since he has come on board.

"From day one we have thought a public listing might be one of outcomes." He has made sure that the IP, the accounting system and operations were all "as clean as a whistle".

What would a public listing do for the business?

"We could build the team a lot more here and have offices in Europe and US." More money would go into R&D.

And the likelihood of a float? "Watch this space," he says.