Ryman prepares for grey tsunami
"We're going to take Melbourne by storm." Chief executive Gordon MacLeod
About 150 shareholders attended the Ryman Healthcare annual meeting yesterday to hear how the 30-year-old company was doing on the cusp of a major new expansion.
At the meeting, which was held at the company’s Charles Upham Retirement Village in Rangiora, chairman Dr David Kerr also spoke of Ryman’s efforts to protect the position of migrant workers in the face of planned changes by the Government to tighten rules.
Demand for care workers would double over the next few years, Kerr said.
Recently appointed chief executive Gordon MacLeod said the number of people living above the age of 80 was about to accelerate in New Zealand and Australia.
‘‘We’re going to take Melbourne by storm,’’ MacLeod said.
Work had begun on new villages at Devonport and Lynfield in Auckland, and a second village in Melbourne at Brandon Park.
Consents had been lodged for two more villages in Melbourne, and planning was under way at three more sites there.
A shareholder asked about recent ‘‘horror stories’’ from Australian retirement villages of residents who had been exploited by poor consumer protection.
Melbourne-based director George Savvides said the report had elicited shock and had also created a significant contrast with Ryman’s modus operandi.
Few, if any, village operators in Australia offered Ryman’s continuum of care, its fixed fees structure, plain English contracts, requirement for independent legal advice, and supervision by a statutory organisation like the Financial Markets Authority, he said.
However, there were similarities between the countries in the level of state financial assistance for residents based on asset testing. Ryman would be lobbying the Australian Government to ensure similar protections to those enjoyed by Kiwis, he said.
Ryman executives recently gave public presentations at Brandon Park and the company had clinched 44 sales contracts.
Retired accountant Sid Ashton, the first chief executive of major shareholder Ngai Tahu, asked about bank debt, and queried why some figures were hard to find in the annual report.
MacLeod said that because Ryman owned its own development company it retained development margins and earned money from sales, as well as from management fees which increased as residents moved in, developments were sold down and debt reduced.
He said Ryman had been unaffected by previous downturns in the property market.
MacLeod reiterated the ‘‘it’s got to be good for Mum’’ values he pledged to uphold, including the culture of kindness introduced by just-retired chief executive Simon Challies, good treatment of staff, and rewarding shareholders.
He said taking up the chief executive role had been bittersweet for him, referring to the onset of Parkinson’s disease that prompted Challies to step down.
MacLeod outlined his decadelong work for Ryman, how his wife was a practising general practitioner, and how his mother had been a resident many years ago.
He said bigger villages in higher-valued locations provided far greater returns than smaller villages in regional centres.