NZEDGE Business — New Zealand through the eyes of the world's media

Developing film ties

New Zealand and China have further strengthened their relations with a film agreement to host more Chinese-produced films in New Zealand. The agreement, made between the two nations in Shanghai and led by a…

Healthy advice for kids

Entrepreneur Dr Kate Hersov “was working as a paediatric doctor in her home country New Zealand when she and business partner Dr Kim Chilman-Blair struck the million pound idea,” Kate Lockyer writes in an…

Super Swift and for Sale

Jock Freemantle’s super car company Hulme is now taking orders for 2 of its CanAm cars, which are priced around $64, and can reach speeds of 32kmh. Each car will be numbered and delivered…

National carrier wins

Air New Zealand has won the Australia-Pacific’s best airline and the region’s staff service excellence award and was voted fifth in the world in the annual Skytrax awards. Eighteen million people voted in this…

Papery puns

Rangitikei artist Andrew Reilly has turned bull dung into paper, “perfect,” reflects Guardian blogger Roy Greenslade “for publishing bullshit”. After harvesting the dung, Reilly soaks it in water for a fortnight, explaining that there…

Tree house wins Webby

Warkworth’s onion-shaped treehouse restaurant, constructed 3ft up in a redwood tree, has won an award in the telecommunications section of the 21 Webby Awards. The Yellow Tree House campaign — a collaboration between advertising…

Dairy giant expands

New Zealand’s Fonterra Cooperative Group, the world’s biggest dairy exporter, expects a double digit jump in Middle East and Africa sales over the next year as the region’s thirst for milk products grows and…

Ash brings business

New Zealand orchid and salmon suppliers were working overtime after the volcanic eruption beneath Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull glacier caused ash-related delays across the planet. “The phone started ringing hot from the East Coast of North…

Developing football

Wellington property developer Terry Serepisos, “who decided three years ago to save professional football in New Zealand, is the talk of his home town” writes The Sydney Morning Herald’s Michael Cockerill. “Wellington Phoenix are…

Qatar seeks NZ company

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) recently held an advisory board meeting under its Beachheads programme in Qatar. Through this two-year programme New Zealand companies are provided with faster access to better international networks….

Twomey triumphs

Artistic director of the New Zealand International Arts Festival Lissa Twomey has “put together a triumphant programme of calculated risk-taking”. Guided by her long experience with the Sydney Festival and her now shrewd understanding of…

Get Your Jet Pack Now

Inventor Glenn Martin’s jet pack will soon be commercially produced at an undisclosed site in New Zealand having finally secured sufficient investment. The 200 horsepower dual-propeller packs are the brainchild of Martin who unveiled his…

Lounging on Air

Air New Zealand is to introduce 22 “Skycouches” — formed out of three economy seats abreast that fold out to create a lie-flat space — in the first 11 rows in the economy cabin…

Top of the World

Air New Zealand has been named Airline of the Year, with judges of the Air Transport World magazine awards, “amazed and surprised at the degree of innovation that was occurring at a remote relatively…

Auckland Airport Expands

Auckland International Airports has acquired Westpac’s 24.55 per cent stake in North Queensland Airports (NQA) for AU$132.8 million as part of a strategy to grow beyond its New Zealand business. It sees Cairns as…

Dishy Beef Cakes

Wellington waiters Strip-of-Meat are a company with “a dress code that involves a lot of skin” writes website Inventorspot. “Yes, we’ve seen plenty of businesses of this sort lately, but with a name like…

Liddell to Detroit

General Motors, #4 on the Fortune 500 and now US-government-owned following a 30 year decline, has named Chris Liddell as Chief Financial Officer at possibly the most critical time in the company’s history following its…

Success at boiling point

Fahrenheit 212 co-founder and CEO Geoff Vuleta leans back in his chair and muses thoughtfully about his native New Zealand. “There’s a lawn at Oxford with a sign on it that clearly says, ‘Don’t…

Smooth operator

New Zealand-based bus manufacturer DesignLine, which already has three 37-seater vehicles valued at $784,000 operating as part of a pilot scheme in New York City, may be joined by 87 more buses by the end…

Model of all things

“People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.” So said the mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary. In the pursuit of the extraordinary, the dean of private business school INSEAD Frank Brown has…

Kanohi Ki Te Kanohi

Whale Watch Kaikoura has been named overall winner of the Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards 2009. The Telegraph’s Mark Chipperfield travels to the seaside town to spot some southern cetaceans. Whale Watch Kaikoura is…

Welcoming business nous

New Zealand’s migration policy has been relaxed in an effort to allow potential investors and entrepreneurs to gain permanent residency. Currently the majority of Brits hoping to live permanently in New Zealand must have…

Power to the people

Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Worldwide and nzedge.com co-founder, Kevin Roberts, appeared in an interview with Alixis Glick on FOX Business during the recent World Business Forum at Radio City Hall in New York, talking…

Home in Iraq

New Zealand’s family-run Atconz Real Estate Development will spend $1 million on a housing development in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region, near the regional capital Erbil. Plans for the “New Azadi” project call for the…

Digital industrialists

David ten Have, the 34-year-old CEO of Wellington company Ponoko features on the cover of Inc. Magazine, as part of an article called ‘The Future of Manufacturing’. “Ponoko did not invent the laser cutter….

Cheap shots for seats

Air New Zealand recently used social-networking site Twitter to seek opinion on a new Grab-a-seat campaign, which featured six advertisements poking fun at six local destinations. The 9000 followers of Grab-a-seat were asked to…

Out With the Old

Invercargill inventor Grant Ryan, 40, unveiled his YikeBike- an electric 10kg mini penny-farthing for the 21st century- at the Eurobike international trade show in Friedrichshafen, Germany. The Daily Mail’s Paul Harris takes the bike…

Blumsky’s selling point

Former Wellington mayor, shoe salesman and business mentor Mark Blumsky has written a book promoting the secrets to success for small business owners: differentiation and attitude. Slippers: Service and Selling begins with an allegory…

Looking to the sun

New Zealand power company Meridian Energy Ltd has purchased a Californian-based solar power facility Cleantech America for $8.1 million enabling the electricity generator to explore the potential of solar power in New Zealand. “Hydro…

Sidhe’s smashing game

Wellington-based game production studio Sidhe Interactive has launched its self-published title Shatter onto the Playstation Network, a game which combines classic brick-breaking with the latest effects and a fully scored soundtrack by Wellington multi-instrumentalist…

Extolling winged virtues

A New Zealand manufactured turbine-powered bush plane, the P750 XSTOL is being promoted in Alaska by a Californian dealer who says the aircraft rivals the traditional Cessna turbine aircraft for travel in the American…

On the rocks

Minus5 creator Craig Ling has opened another ice bar, this time in Stillwater, Minnesota. “Patrons looking for something really cool will now be able to don a parka and gloves and step into an…

Front row seat for Kirk

Former Fairfax boss and All Black great David Kirk is the newly appointed executive chairman of the Pacific Equity Partners-owned Hoyts cinema group. The move, which will also see Kirk invest his own money…

Sting in UK market

Family-owned business Nelson Honey is seeking approval to market its bee venom honey in Britain, claiming the product alleviates the symptoms of arthritis. Britain’s Food Safety Authority has to approve the marketing of any…

Hell has no borders

New Zealand fastfood chain Hell Pizza will open 30 franchises throughout Ireland by 2016. The first Hell’s Pizza was launched in Dublin earlier this year, which made Ireland the fifth country to open a…

Oaks from iPods

New Zealanders John and Sarah Lewis, directors of London-based company AcornHQ, are encouraging iPhone and iPod owners to offset carbon emissions associated with the devices by making a small donation to an oak…

Investing in Breath

Roger Dickie New Zealand Ltd is offering investors shares in Onslow Carbon Forest, an established Douglas-fir forest east of the township of Roxburgh for $25,000 allowing investors the potential to earn carbon credits, and…

Investing in New Zealand

A number of New Zealand companies are seeking alliances with the Silicon Valley’s tech investors and entrepreneurs in an effort to grow and extend their reach into world markets. “Everyone realises the best thinking…

Awards for inspiration

New Zealand retailer Michael Hill was one of 50 finalists in the Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur of the Year awards held in Monte Carlo. Last year in New Zealand, judging panel chairman David…

Whiteware deal

Fisher & Paykel has signed a US$50 million deal with Chinese appliance maker Haier, which will see the Qingdao-based manufacturer take a 20 per cent stake in the New Zealand company. Haier has signed…

Safe appointment

New Zealand-born businessman, David Thodey, 54, has been appointed the new chief executive of Australia’s Telstra Corporation, taking over the role from controversial out-going head, Solomon Trujillo. Thodey, who has been with Telstra since…

Something to be said

“What’s curious about the relative health of the New Zealand banking system is that it’s dominated by four big Australian banks,” writes The New Yorker’s James Surowiecki. “This seems to complicate the oft-floated argument…

Island fortunes

Fifty-four-year-old Aucklander Graeme Hart is the wealthiest man in Australasia with an estimated net worth of $4.7 billion. For the first time since Forbes Asia started keeping track of global fortunes, a New Zealander…

Webby Award Success

Wellington-based online accounting software provider Xero and Auckland-based mobile advertising agency The Hyperfactory won eight awards at the 13th Annual Webby Awards in New York. The Hyperfactory dominated the mobile advertising category with six…

Mothers make green

Ecostore founder Malcolm Rands has been touring American hypermarket chain Meijer promoting his environmentally friendly household cleaning products, the stores the exclusive retailer of his products. A well-known environmentalist in New Zealand, Rands is…