Positioned for global growth

Navman chairman Peter Maire says Rakon beats all of its major Japanese competitors hands-down. Picture / Glenn Jeffrey

Peter Maire, founder and chairman of navigation technology specialist Navman, has taken a significant shareholding in component supplier Rakon.

Maire and his investment partners have bought 20 per cent of Rakon, whose quartz crystals and oscillators are used in telecommunications and global-positioning systems.

Maire has enjoyed considerable success with Navman, which he sold to United States marine and leisure technology giant Brunswick for $108 million last year, but he describes Rakon as New Zealand's "only real technology company".

"If you talk about real, state-of-the-art technology on a global scale, they're a market leader. They beat all of the major Japanese competitors hands-down."

Rakon was founded by Warren Robinson in 1967 in his basement, where he hand-made quartz crystals for the VHF and marine industries.

Today, the company employs about 500 people in its Auckland headquarters and exports 95 per cent of its production, worth about $70 million a year.

Rakon made headlines in August for supplying technology to the US military, but Maire said this represented less than 1 per cent of sales.

"Just about every major GPS navigation product in the world you see today will have a Rakon oscillator in it," he said.

Maire plans on using his experience to help to develop the business, although he will not be involved in daily management.

"The collective desire is now to really grow the company as rapidly as possible and expand into a much more global business," he said.

This included looking at overseas manufacture of technology for more cost-sensitive and less performance-dependent GPS markets.

"The real expansion will come when the GPS goes into the cellphone," said Maire, adding that such technology would be mandatory in every US mobile within two years for emergency services purposes.

In August, Rakon was named New Zealand Trade and Enterprise 2005 Supreme Exporter of the Year and Information and Communications Technology exporter.