He will retire from the Anzco chairman’s role at the annual meeting in March.
Itoham now owns 100% of the company, increasing its stake from 65%. In the deal completed in late December, it bought the 16.76% stake owned by another Japanese group, Nissui, as well as the 18.24% held mainly by Harrison but also by Anzco management.
The latest move was the final step in the process started in 2011, when he signalled his intention to step aside over the next few years. Long-term shareholder Itoham began taking a more active involvement, including attending board meetings, and eventually moved to a majority stake in 2015.
Harrison said then that he hoped to be out by the time he was 70, and that’s the result he’ll have.
He founded Anzco in 1984 as a sheep meat marketer into Asia. Processing came much later, and beef now makes up about two-thirds of the business.
Anzco believes it was New Zealand’s fifth biggest exporter and second biggest meat company in 2016, with annual turnover of $1.45 billion. It employs more than 3000 people, mainly in regional NZ, has eight offices overseas and exports to about 80 countries.
Itoham Foods is part of the Itoham Yonekyu Holdings group, one of the biggest meat processing and marketing groups in Japan. Its controlling shareholder is Mitsubishi, one of the biggest world corporates.
Succeeding in world markets was all about access to the “global value chain”, Harrison said. Anzco was benefiting from Itoham and Mitsubishi’s connections, and Itoham – whose main meat business is the domestic Japan Wagyu beef market – was benefiting from Anzco’s distribution expertise across many important markets outside Japan, notably Europe and Taiwan.
“We’ve got formidable access and strong distribution into market,” Harrison said.
Itoham had indicated that it wouldn’t be making significant changes to the Anzco business operations in the foreseeable future.
Harrison said it was a strength of the business that Anzco has had only three chief executives over its 34 years – with lengthy terms by himself and Mark Clarkson, and Peter Conley for the past year – and to be able to make internal appointments to the role.
Outside of its core cattle feedlot, meat processing and exporting operations, the company was an early mover into value-add with its stewardship of FoodPlus, a programme jointly funded by Anzco and the Primary Growth Partnership. Solid progress had been achieved in what was a “long-slog” process, Harrison said.
“All the building blocks are in place for Anzco.”
Harrison grew up in Methven, and returned there from Wellington a few years ago after buying a large farm as a family venture to run beef cattle and sheep.
“I’ll be doing more time on the farm,” he said.
“That’s what this is about. Some of the guys I went to school with are retiring from farming, but I’m going back to it.”
He has also retired as a Nissui appointment on the board of fishing group Sealord. Nissui is a 50% shareholder in Sealord, in a joint venture with Maori.
Harrison was a regular attendee at Sealord board meetings, but Nissui hadn’t been at an Anzco board meeting since the mid-1990s, following its 1989 investment. That record highlighted the “complete trust” between the groups, Harrison said.
He was critical, however, of the time taken by the Overseas Investment Office (OIO) to approve Itoham’s move to 100% ownership, especially since it had already approved the move to 65% from 48.3% in 2015.
“It took seven months this time, and it took 10 weeks in 2015.”
That delay was a blight on NZ’s regulatory arrangements, Harrison said. There was no regard to the previous history, and each application had to start again.
“Politicians have left it in a mess in how it operates. Slow justice is no justice.”
The OIO should be restructured so that it was able to make decisions clearly and quickly, yea or nay, Harrison said.
“If it’s nay, then you just work with it.”
