Better-paid staff pays off: Ryman
Ryman Healthcare says it has responded to staff concerns about pay and conditions and is now one of the top payers in the retirement sector.
Managing director Simon Challies told shareholders in Whangarei that Ryman staff had not always been happy in the past.
But the company had raised pay rates by 10 per cent over the past two years, and spelt out entitlements and career opportunities, plus ensured rosters were fully staffed.
Ryman had also resolved frustration over uniforms with new ones made by fashion designer Annah Stretton, Challies said.
Chairman Dr David Kerr referred to the staff pay rise when asking shareholders to approve a 9 per cent rise in directors’ fees.
It was two years since the last directors’ fee hike and the 9 per cent lifts the total amount paid to the eight directors to $910,000.
Shareholders approved increase.
Melbourne remains a focus for Ryman, along with a $200 million retirement village planned for Hobsonville, Auckland.
Ryman was expecting to be under way on its second site at Brandon Park in Melbourne later this year after units in its first one were sold out. the
The company has bought a third site at Burwood East for its target of five villages in Melbourne by 2020. It is seeking fourth and fifth sites.
Kerr said Ryman retains its 15 per cent annual growth target and had doubled in size over the past five years.
He was confident of the target because the world was going through the greatest demographic change it had seen with the advancing age of populations, he said.
Ryman has 10,000 residents in 30 homes, four of them in the Auckland region, with three more under construction and two at the consenting phase.
Kerr said the purchase of Ryman’s 10th site reflected its confidence in the market. It required a pipeline of sites to maintain development momentum.
Ryman forecasts it will accommodate more than 17,500 residents over the next five years.
Full-year profit after tax was up 26 per cent to $305m.
Ryman shareholders will receive a final dividend of 8.5 cents a share, taking the total for the year to 15.8c a share, up 16 per cent on the previous year.