Vista Group chief executive Murray Holdaway. Photo / File
The head of a New Zealand company grabbing a big slice of the booming global movie market is a born and bred Northlander.
Murray Holdaway is the co-founder and chief executive of Vista Group, an Auckland-based company whose technology is used to manage cinema operations in 80 countries.
His company, employing
530 people worldwide, has carved out a dominant and highly profitable niche in the cinema business by developing and installing movie ticketing software.
Vista Group recorded a net profit of $48.6 million in the 2016 calendar year, with its underlying earnings increasing 17 per cent. The company's shares closed yesterday at $5.83 - up 148 per cent since Vista went public in 2014 at $2.35 per share. It's current market capitalisation was $477 million.
Vista Group is often held up as a shining example of a Kiwi tech company doing well in the information age. In 2015 it was recognised in New Zealand financial markets as the equity listing of the year.
Mr Holdaway's parents lived in Kaikohe where he was born in 1956. The family moved to Whangarei when he was 3 years old, settling at Onerahi in the early 1960s. He grew up in Whangarei, attending Onerahi Primary School and Whangarei Boys' High School and lived here till he was 18 and went to university in Auckland. He would come back home for summer holidays and worked at places like the glassworks or loading butter on ships at the port.
Mr Holdaway very much considers Whangarei his hometown. His parents still live in Onerahi and his sister lives at Marsden Cove. He bought a bach at Oakura in 2000 and gets up to Northland regularly with his wife and two sons, now aged 27 and 22 (the older son studying in the US, the younger in Wellington).
A keen fisherman, Mr Holdaway recalls catching his first fish at Oakura as a 6-year-old and casting his rod from the Onerahi jetty regularly and at the Town Basin for sprats.
He was well known in Onerahi working at both Brian Biddle's Four Square store and the new supermarket as the delivery van driver for about four years.
"I remember jumping off the school bus each day and heading off to do the delivery rounds." Mr Holdaway also did other jobs such as lawnmowing.
His father Richard was the head of of Dalgety Travel for about 25 years.
Mr Holdaway attended Boys' High from 1971-74, the last year as head boy. He was captain of the 1st XI soccer team and was often reminded by his peers and teachers that he was the first head boy in 100 years who didn't play rugby.
"The school was very different in those days, much harder and rougher place than it is now."
He has met current principal Karen Gilbert-Smith, the school's first female head, several times - "we are lucky to have her".
After Boys' High, Mr Holdaway attended the University of Auckland to study for a degree in mathematics. This was around the time computing was starting to take hold.
"Prior to this time there wasn't even a computing science dept at AU. It was part of the maths department. I got a taste of it and in my first year realised it was something I could be good at," he said.
Mr Holdaway graduated with a double major in both maths and computer science.
His first job was with the Ford Motor Company as a trainee programmer in Auckland "where they made the Escorts and Falcons".
From there he took on several positions before heading to the United Kingdom where he worked from 1982-85. He returned and started his own business in about 1987 - Madison Systems.
"That was just a couple of months before the stock market crash.
"We took a big pay cut," he joked. "But we survived and stayed focused on making money developing software for hire." Madison grew to employ about 140 people at its peak with offices in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
Vista had its beginnings as one of the projects undertaken by Mr Holdaway and Madison Systems.
Village Cinemas, which arrived on the NZ cinema scene in the mid-90s, building multiplex cinemas, wanted a new system to allow staff to sell movie tickets from the same kiosk as food and drinks.
Mr Holdaway and his business partners formed a 50/50 joint venture company with Village, sold Madison Systems, and adapted their software for a global market.
Vista later bought the Village shareholding and, between 2001 and 2010, Mr Holdaway travelled the world selling its product. They set up offices in the UK, China and the United States, and gathered business partners from countries including Mexico, South Africa and India.
Mr Holdaway says the best advice he can give based on his experience is to "just get in and do it".
"The keys are listening to your customers and understanding what they want and delivering it to them. It's not rocket science, nothing new in business ... and hopefully being able to make something through the transaction," he said.
Mr Holdaway adds that one has to also think globally.
"We thought that way from the start. Our second customer was in Fiji, third in Argentina and fourth in Singapore," he said. "We don't think of ourselves as an exporter. All I think about is that we have customers in different countries," he said.
About 1.5 per cent of the group's turnover is from New Zealand.
He says the cinema industry is changing rapidly, particularly in competitive markets, with cinemas constantly trying to upscale their offerings.
"It's no longer just popcorn and Coke. They're now serving drinks or delivering sushi or pizza to you in reclining chairs."
Of the 530 people working for Vista globally, about 250 are software developers. There are about 250-270 staff based in Auckland. And the ethnic diversity of the company reflects its global reach.
"It's very multicultural. In our main NZ development office less than half are New Zealanders. We need a lot of local language speakers." Vista's China support team, of about 10 staff working with clients in China remotely by phone and internet, is based in Auckland.
Mr Holdaway says Vista does more than just ticketing. It's now become a software company for the whole film industry.
He says protecting the intellectual property of the business is a huge challenge. "The best way to protect our IP [intellectual property] it is to go faster, stay ahead of the competition," he said.
Mr Holdaway still maintains links with Boys' High as one of six trustees on the school's endowment trust committee. The committee meets every six months to review the investment and how much can be allocated to school projects.
Some of the seed money came from old boys and is now worth several hundred thousand dollars, he says.
The aim is to build up the capital to generate income for special projects at the school.