Instilling confidence in NZ story

Sometimes people think business is all about numbers. But, like most human endeavours, it is really about stories.

That's why it isn't surprising when siblings like Bob Jones and his literary brother Lloyd are so successful in their respective fields - they both know how to tell a story. All the best businesspeople do.

Numbers help tell the story and ought to let people sort the good yarns from bad. Too often, though, they confuse and stop people understanding stories they need to grasp. They can be manipulated and twisted just like words.

The smartest investors always look for the underlying story in an opportunity. Once they have a grip on the tale they are buying they do their own maths and decide if the sums add up. They create their own story.

When Graeme Hart spots a potential acquisition you can bet he writes his own script. When he gets it right his deals are so sweet it is as if they are done in rhyming couplets.

The poor quality of storytelling coming out of Wall St in the years prior to the crash has been devastating. So stories of displaced and dejected investment bankers are more likely to engender outrage than pity. These are not Sudanese refugee children, they are not even elderly pensioners who have lost their life savings. In the eyes of many they are the people who share the blame for this crisis the world finds itself in. But they are revealing human stories of people who have been spat out from a badly broken machine.

They are also part of an epic story that hit the public imagination last year and is still overshadowing every attempt by the business world to write a new script.

The "greenshoots" story as it is being pitched by the world's political leaders is not yet a powerful one. It is constantly being undercut by the cold, doggedly un-poetic narratives of the IMF, the OECD and economists who are rightly determined to see the world fully accept the magnitude of what has gone wrong before it moves on.

The importance of the need to embrace truth and learn from it - however horrible it is - should be obvious as we celebrate Anzac Day and remember those who lost their lives fighting wars against fascism and other incarnations of evil.

But despite the full force of this week's grim IMF report, green shoots continue to sprout. They are small and fragile but provide vital reminders that new stories are irrepressible.

On the New Zealand markets capital raising by Nuplex, SkyCity, Fletcher Building and numerous others is the story of the moment. It is a good one. It tells us that money is still moving. It tells us that local investors are prepared to back local companies and it tells us that foreign investors, particularly in Australia, still have some confidence in the New Zealand story.

That's heartening because, while we still have plenty of strong businesses, this country is precariously placed in terms of its international debt position.

If Standard & Poor's decides to downgrade our national credit rating things are going to get really ugly - for business and for households.

While the pre-Budget speech delivered by Finance Minister Bill English on Wednesday didn't give away new details it was at least reassuring in tone. On May 28 English has to tell - and sell - the biggest story of his career. This is our most important Budget for years.

Both English and John Key know S&P is watching closely. In fact, they are aware the whole financial world is watching. New Zealand is one of the only countries in the world to have installed a centre-right Government. We are an oddity. So Key and English have a platform from which to launch a story in which New Zealand plays the part of a conservative, fiscally prudent economy braced to take some pain in order to right its debt position.

The numbers around debt will still be ugly. We can't hide them. But it may not take bold typeface to tell a story foreign investors want to hear. If English can get the tone right and Key can sell the story on the world stage then New Zealand has a shot at looking better than it deserves to when the powers that hold the purse strings do their sums.