Stay up-to-date with The Insider, a weekly column featuring what's happening behind the scenes in business.
Xero to A$100 in 10 years
Xero, which listed for $1 on the NZX in 2007, broke through the A$100 barrier for the first time in Wednesday trading on the ASX - peakingat A$101 before pulling back to close up 1.54 per cent to A$100.02.
The cloud-based accounting software company dual-listed on the ASX in 2010 before taking up exclusive residence there a couple of years ago.
Habour Asset Management portfolio manager Shane Solly cheered the stock going "From Xero to $100 in ten years" reflecting it's time on the ASX.
Xero's 2020 annual report lists the family of founder Rod Drury as the largest single shareholder, despite several chunky selldowns (including a $120 million block last year).
Its latest surge takes its market cap to A$14.23 billion ($14.83b), valuing the 11.08 per cent Drury stake at $1.71b.
Xero, which squeaked into the black with a $3.3m profit for FY2020 as revenue rose 30 per cent to $718m, now has some heady multiples.
But Solly reckons the company - which recently updated that subscriber growth has continued through the pandemic - can go higher.
"Xero remains one of our larger active investments," he says. "Covid-19 may have accelerated the move to online SaaS [software-as-a-servce or "cloud"] for a number of services including accounting. Xero may also have a bigger part to play in wider financial sector disruption."
Super kind
Spending by the government-funded New Zealand Superannuation Fund during New Zealand's first nationwide lockdown has attracted the ire of the NZ Taxpayers Union.
An Official Information Act request for credit card and staff reimbursements by the Taxpayers' Union from March 1 to May 31 has revealed the Super Fund spent over $15,000 for "wellbeing" parcels for staff from upmarket supermarket Farro Fresh.
Assuming all staff received the parcels meant each would have cost around $106.
In an email to the Taypayers Union the Super Fund said the wellbeing packages contained sundry groceries including coffee and hot cross buns.
"They were distributed in lockdown to say thank you to the team for the exceptionally hard work they did to manage the fund in volatile and testing markets while under significant personal pressure."
The Super Fund spent over $15,000 for "wellbeing" parcels for staff from upmarket supermarket Farro Fresh, which included coffee and hot cross buns. Photo / 123RF
Taxpayers' Union spokesman Louis Houlbrook said the Super Fund staff were highly paid and did not need home-delivered hot cross buns funded by taxpayers.
"The pandemic has once again highlighted the mismatch between the public and private sectors during an economic crisis. The unprecedented economic fallout of Covid-19 left many in the private sector reeling.
"Businesses unable to trade during the level 4 lockdown were left scrambling to make up the losses on their balance sheets, with closures and lay-offs common."
"In stark contrast, staff at NZSF enjoyed complete job security and hot cross buns while the taxpayers who fund their salaries were cutting back."
