Today we start a new four-part podcast series, Moving On Up. In future episodes we’ll be looking at ports, technology and private equity – but in the first episode, Emile Donovan talks to General Manager NZ Growth Sector, BNZ, Brandon Jackson, about the visionaries, the dreamers, the schemers … and picking the industries that are going to fly the highest.
Brandon Jackson is in the business of getting in early to help sunrise industries grow, and he has seven or eight sectors in particular lined up in his sights.
They are high revenue, high value sectors that are important to BNZ – and to New Zealand.
They include technology industries, high net-worth migrants, Asia business, healthcare, export professionals and Māori growth businesses.
The bank tries to help with capital through lending, connections, or helping to build capability to help those sectors grow. But it’s also important to spot the potential of an industry early – think about the madness of investing in Central Otago wine in the 1960s or 70s. Now it’s an international destination for just that.
“Where we see opportunity – we know the impact capital can make, and with the breadth of the bank’s network we can bring people in and say ‘You should really be thinking about this’ … ‘You should have this sort of advice’ … anything that can help businesses grow quicker and more safely. It benefits them, it benefits us – that’s what we are focusing on.”
Jackson says the bank is basically responding to what’s going on in the world.
“The fastest growing industries in the world at the moment are the Covid bounce-back industries – airlines, travel, anything that’s been pushed down or suppressed as a result of lockdowns and that sort of thing. If you look past that, it’s things like healthcare, HR and recruitment and outsourcing, and anything involving technology that solves problems; whether that be in energy or climate clean tech, or food-related stuff. Basically it’s those three areas. It all makes perfect sense because the world is rapidly aging so you’ve got more and more elderly people, so healthcare is a part of that. You’ve also got more people moving out of poverty into middle class and expecting higher standards of living – that’s also healthcare. With recruitment and outsourcing HR, it’s a function of people getting older, so there’s a shortage of labour. We are in a global war for talent. Most places are facing the same issue.”
The technology play is solving climate issues, food issues or lack of labour, so it’s all aligned and “common-sensical”, he says.
“The opportunity for us is niche and global.” That means looking at value chains to see what niche they can play in.
“With Covid and people working from home, the tyranny of distance has been reduced a little bit because we are familiar with working from home and we are comfortable with that. Whilst we still need relationships and we really need to get out into the world and make sure relationships are strong .. and win in new markets … there is a real opportunity there.
“In terms of other opportunities for New Zealand I think the fact we are so far from the rest of the world, at times is a real advantage. So if you think about that we’re in a global talent war, and there’s climate change, political instability … there’s people on the move … we’re well removed from that, so people who are smart, people who have family members that they want to protect …. and they often have capital or insights that we might want as a country … I think that’s a real opportunity to sort of pick and choose who we want to be here in terms of high net worth migrants, and bring them here.”
Jackson says if the BNZ’s customers are growing, the bank is growing, and ‘NZ Inc’ is growing.
“You’re actually increasing prosperity. And a prosperous nation has options. It can choose what it does, it has better standards of living. That’s what gets us fired up and gets us out of bed in the morning.”
Speaking of being fired up – in this podcast Jackson dives into the aerospace industry with it’s astonishing statistics – it’s already nearly as big as our wine industry and has huge potential.
“It came onto my radar close to two years ago … it shocked me initially!” And it’s far more than just RocketLab. Farming, conservation, shipping .. a multitude of industries can benefit from what’s going on in the stratosphere.
It’s not just the billions of dollars of opportunity here, it’s making people’s lives a lot easier, says Jackson.
“There are some very, very smart people in New Zealand doing some great stuff.”
Jackson says New Zealand is really well placed because we are generalists.
“Sure we might not have the scale, or the budgets that other countries have. But we have the opportunity to really try to look at some of these problems and solve them.”
Listen to the podcast to find out why the BNZ is also keeping its eye on cannabis … and why Jackson thinks avoiding risk isn’t good for society or banking. He’ll also tell us about the “pathway to YES” when it comes to getting a loan for early-phase businesses.
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This content is solely for information purposes. It’s not financial or other professional advice. For help, please contact BNZ or your professional adviser. No party, including BNZ, is liable for direct or indirect loss or damage resulting from the content of this article. Any opinions in this article are not necessarily shared by BNZ or anyone else.
