NZ Herald's Andrea Fox wins journalism award for Fonterra stories

NZ Herald business reporter Andrea Fox interviewing Fonterra CEO Miles Hurrell.

New Zealand Herald business reporter Andrea Fox was a joint winner at the New Zealand Shareholders' Association business journalism awards held in Auckland last night.

Fox shared the title of best business feature writer with NBR's Tim Hunter, who went on to take out the supreme award after also winning the business commentary category.

Fox received accolades from the judges for a three-part feature on Fonterra that documented the co-operative's troubles before its shock $605 million financial loss this year.

Judges said the features entries were of a high quality and in the case of the winners, outstanding.

"Andrea Fox's Fonterra story was a highly topical, authoritative analysis of what went wrong in our biggest company. She drew on her long experience reporting Fonterra and the extensive range of contacts she has built up to produce a piece that was stamped with authority and was highly readable."

"Tim Hunter's three-part examination of the rise and fall of the CBL insurance group read like an international thriller as his narrative crossed countries and jurisdictions; it was an extensive piece of work supported by clear graphics and lively writing. And, most
importantly, it explained how and why this insurance company fell."

Andrea Fox receives her award from NZSA chairman Tony Mitchell

NBR's Andrew Bevin won the young business journalist award.

The judges were Richard Harman, Dr Merja Myllylahti, Bruce Morris, Jane Arnott and Garth Ireland.

The NZSA also handed out its annual Beacon award for outstanding business performance to Sir Stephen Tindall, founder of The Warehouse.

Sir Stephen, who opened the first Warehouse store on Auckland's North Shore in 1982, would later turn his attention - and cashflow - to family philanthropic trust the Tindall Foundation and his seed and venture capital fund, K1W1.

Listen here to a HP Business podcast featuring Sir Stephen Tindall

Previous winners of the beacon award include Mainfreight's Don Braid, Rob Campbell and Michael Daniell.