(From left): Paul Retimanu, sister Niva Retimanu and Pacific Business Trust CEO Mary Los'e.
(From left): Paul Retimanu, sister Niva Retimanu and Pacific Business Trust CEO Mary Los'e.
Paul Retimanu didn’t need to know how – or how well – the Pacific Business Trust worked when he was appointed chairman of its board in August 2022. He was living proof of how effective it could be in changing Pasifika people’s lives.
Twenty-four years earlier, Paul obtained a loan of $50,000 from the organisation he now heads. His mother Fipe Retimanu used her home as collateral. That loan has been turned into a multi-million-dollar catering business, Manaaki Management.
While that level of trust and family support might seem surprising, it’s a characteristic of Samoan and other immigrant Pasifika cultures – the family unit works together for the collective good, sometimes sacrificing a generation to achieve financial security for children and grandchildren. It’s what Paul calls having “a Pacific heart”.
His equally prominent newsreader sister, Niva, and two other siblings were major beneficiaries of a different kind of parental generosity before Fipe offered the family home as collateral.
Fipe and her husband Faaopoopo Retimanu immigrated to New Zealand in the 1950s, settling in Invercargill - one of only three Samoan families in the city.
They were among a wave of Pacific peoples who entered New Zealand to help fuel its then-booming economy. Faaopoopo worked at the Ocean Beach freezing works.
The family was far from rich materially, but the children didn’t miss out on anything. Over the weekends, they were often taken to the library.
Niva Retimanu and brother Paul Retimanu at a fundraiser for Steven Adams' Kiwi basketball charity.
“It was free. It was warm and we could go there during winter,” says Niva.
“We had good [lessons] from our parents. They just wanted the best for us.”
She and Paul developed a love of reading through those library visits that, to use one of Paul’s favourite terms, put them in good stead for the rest of their lives.
This love of reading also lends itself to a love to succeeding at the highest level, with Niva swooping the coveted Best Newsreader award at the NZ Radio awards nine times - something she says comes from having their parents’ lessons and a younger brother to bounce success off.
“Paul has a very sensible way of approaching things. We were quite young when Mum and Dad passed away, so we have always relied on each other, and we just get in and get things done. There’s no mucking around.”
Niva says they have always backed Paul and knew whatever he did would be a success.
“A big part of our culture is to serve, and Paul has been able to combine a natural talent and make a very successful business from it. The business that he and Keri built is about creating something for the future of our family. He’s always been a go-getter, and hospo is in his blood - even now, he’s the first to get up and make sure everyone has a drink and kai. He can’t help himself.”
The resilience their parents showed in adapting to a new country and culture, then helping steer their children to successful careers, has been a mainstay of Paul’s life and philosophy.
Successful Pasifika businessman Paul Retimanu.
He now emphasises that need for resilience to his Pacific Business Trust (PBT) clients – while always maintaining a Pacific heart, which includes paying a living wage to all his Manaaki Management staff, even school-age part-timers.
His firm’s resilience was learned the hard way through the shocks of the global financial crisis and the Covid-19 lockdowns.
Paul explains the business’s origin 25 years ago, and what it has taken to survive.
“My wife Keri and I decided to go out and set up our own business, which was a catering company. Unfortunately, we weren’t financially well-off enough to have a house, and the banks obviously weren’t interested because we had no collateral,” Paul said.
When the banks declined his loan application, he went to the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs, now the Ministry of Pacific Peoples.
“I was put on to Pacific Business Trust, and from there we were able to secure the loan so we could start up our business,” Paul said.
“My mother kindly put her house as collateral for a $50,000 loan. My siblings Peter, Marie and Niva obviously all agreed that this [was] a good thing for Mum to do, so I’m also very incredibly grateful to them.”
Niva Retimanu can lay a claim to the title of New Zealand's best radio newsreader - and has been able to for many years. Photo / NZ Herald
With the loan from PBT, Paul established catering firm KPR in the Wellington CBD, doing morning teas, brunches, afternoon teas and deliveries to clients that included government departments.
Among their first clients were local iwi, through three land-based trusts: Wellington Tenths Trust, Palmerston North Māori Reserves Trust and Port Nicholson Block Settlement Trust.
“They were one of our first clients. I got a phone call one day back in ‘98, two months after opening, and there was a kind kuia, Ereni, on the phone. She said, ‘Look, are you a catering company?’ I said, ‘Yes, we are’. She said, ‘We need catering’, and I said, ‘Fantastic’.”
“She asked where KPR was based and then told them she was based in Thorndon, just outside the CBD and within walking distance. I said, ‘Tell me what you need, and we’ll see how we go’.”
“Here we are 25-26 years later, after a lot of [lessons] along the way. We’ve gone through a few interesting times.”
Paul didn’t set up Manaaki Management until 2010.
“As our relationship [with clients] evolved, we started to take over venues,” he says.
Pipitea Marae Function Centre was the first, followed by Wharewaka Function Centre. Then the couple set up Karaka Cafe.
The company thrived until 2008 when Wall Street financial institutions began to go under, triggered by “toxic loans” in the housing market. Global stock markets panicked and share values tumbled worldwide, banks failed, others were bailed out, belts were tightened, and people stopped spending.
“The GFC was very tough for us,” says Paul. “Unfortunately, the catering company didn’t make it through the GFC. We were fortunate enough that we still had Manaaki Management, which had all our venues in it, so we were able to trade through.”
Then the government changed.
“[Sir] John Key came through, and [Sir] Bill English. Obviously, they had to make some cuts. Probably 70 per cent of our business was government, so we used to turn over $60,000 a week in deliveries of morning tea, lunches, afternoon teas,” Paul said.
“They went straight to Super Wine biscuits and Shrewsbury’s and cut all their catering. We went from $60,000 turnover a week to $10,000 a week.
“And I didn’t cut staff quick enough, unfortunately. But those were some significant, severe [lessons] for us, which I believe held us in good stead to get us through Covid.
“We were a business that was 10 years old at the time. But when you haven’t gone through a crisis, you just don’t know, and of course, we didn’t cut staff quick enough. We didn’t do a raft of different things quickly enough, and unfortunately, it caught up with us in 2011.
“But we were fortunate enough that we had Manaaki Management set up prior to all of that, and we had the venues and relationships. That put us in good stead to continue and, if anything, it made us stronger.”
At 11.59pm on March 25, Alert Level 4 was activated and New Zealand woke up to an unprecedented nationwide lockdown.
A decade later, it was a different story when the country was put into lockdown.
“Before we went into lockdown, my wife and I went to Melbourne – it was her auntie’s birthday. We were there for five days in early March,” Paul recalls.
“We were in a taxi [heading] from the airport into the city and we stopped at a set of lights in the CBD, and I look to my left and saw this guy who was in full PPE gear – white freezing-works gumboots, overalls and a full-face plastic mask, and I looked at him and said to the taxi driver, ‘What’s that?’
He said: “That’s the coronavirus that’s really affecting us.”
“This is people working from home. Nobody’s catching public transport. I was stunned.
“We got back to Wellington, and I went into the office.
“Our business is 60 per cent conferencing, where people come into venues and they have a conference or a dinner or a launch, whatever it may be. I said to our sales director at the time, ‘Have we had any cancellations this week?’
“This is on a Monday. By the Friday of that week, we had between 45 and 55 cancellations of conferencing [events], and I knew we were in trouble.”
Paul said what he’d learned from the global financial crisis kicked in.
“We started to restructure our business straight away.
“We looked at letting staff go, because we weren’t too sure how that was going to go - bearing in mind we had 100 staff at the time.
“And then I started to ring all their suppliers. I said, ‘Look, we’re not going to be able to pay you the full amount on the 20th of the month. However, I’ll do 50 per cent, and then let’s just see how we go’. They were all great. We did the same with the banks. We secured some extra overdrafts and so forth, and we pretty much lined everything up.”
Two weeks later on March 25, 2020, the country was placed in full lockdown.
“We were fortunate enough that we’d already moved and mobilised quite quickly, so by the time we got to the 25th we’d already pretty much … put everything in place,” Paul said.
“The Prime Minister came on TV at 1pm or 2pm to say, ‘We’re going into full lockdown’. That day, I had 22 staff rostered on throughout our function centres and in our restaurant, and we took $220 dollars from the till.”
Paul said the government subsidies helped his business survive.
“We were fortunate that we didn’t have to let any staff go – we were able to retain everybody.”
Retention and growth have clearly been key to running Manaaki Management.
Pacific Business Trust will deliver for Pacific businesses
But the PBT role is one he holds close to his heart, and the appointment of CEO Mary Los’e in February was key to the strategic direction he wants the organisation to go in.
Paul sits on 10 boards, including that of Hospitality New Zealand and the Wellington Regional Economic Development Plan Steering Committee.
“PBT is currently supporting and partnering with more than two thousand Pacific-owned businesses across Aotearoa who are contributing to our economy,” Paul said.
“These are tax-paying business owners. PBT has new governance, new operational leadership in Mary, who has done a brilliant job in this very short period, and we will continue to support our business.
“Government is looking for delivery, and I am confident Mary and the team will do just that.”
Pacific Business Trust CEO Mary Los'e is working with BBM boss Dave Letele with business support. Photo / Supplied
Los’e said she is fortunate to have a chair who sees the potential of PBT becoming a conduit between Pacific businesses, the private sector and the Government as PBT transitions to operate as the Pacific Economic Development Agency.
“Our role is to join these together - commercial and community can work to deliver great outcomes.”
Alongside a new CEO, a new board under the newly formed coalition Government and a new minister, Dr Shane Reti, Paul remains positive about the future of PBT.
These days, the Pacific Business Trust is more likely to direct a business to an investor than provide funds themselves.
What they offer is networking, mentoring and workshops in vital business areas.
“We don’t necessarily do loans anymore. It’s around having initiatives or being able to provide services, whether they might require some accounting, some marketing, some sort of expertise; and we have a number [around 100] of providers,” says Paul.
For instance, last week PBT, based in Penrose, Auckland, opened a new office in Wellington, where they ran an accountancy course for Pasifika businesses.
“Basically, we work alongside those providers to be able to give our members good, sound robust advice on where their businesses is currently at.”
Those advisers also offer strategies and solutions for starting a business or getting it back on course, “but also how to grow your business, because that’s obviously important. Growth is the most important part”.
“I want to be realistic to these businesses. Like we have people coming saying, ‘You know, we’re going make a million dollars, we’re going to be rich’.
“Be realistic. Just break even and pay your bills … then all of a sudden, you can look broadly at other opportunities - and then you can go forward. It’s a more pragmatic way to do it.
“We’ve made a lot of mistakes in the last 25 years, and we’ve learned from them.
“And what I’d like to see is a lot of our members - and we have about 2100 Pacific businesses in the Pacific Business Trust - I would like them to hear [from] business operators who have gone through tough times about how they got through it.”
The Pacific Business Trust (PBT) is the Pacific economic development agency of Aotearoa New Zealand. It provides a free and confidential personalised service with a laser focus on helping Pacific businesses realise ambitious plans, build capability with confidence, tap into innovative solutions and learn what it takes to grow sustainably through customised programmes and services.
