New TIL team aims to inject transport company with Mainfreight magic

Tuesday, 27 July 2021

Former Mainfreight executives Mark Newman and Chris Dunphy have joined the board of transport company TIL.

Two former Mainfreight executives “with freight in their DNA” have joined the board of TIL Logistics Group to help the transport and logistics firm lift its profit and performance.

New Plymouth-based TIL traces its history back to 1869 through the Hooker Bros transport business and has in recent decades expanded through acquisition to become one of the largest domestic freight and logistics businesses in New Zealand. It joined the NZX in a reverse listing in December 2017.

Former Mainfreight executive director Chris Dunphy, 56, helped take the country’s largest freight business public in 1996 and spearheaded its global growth through acquisitions during his 10-year stint in senior management. He joined the board of TIL earlier this month and took over as executive director on Tuesday following the resignation of chief executive Alan Pearson last week.

His former colleague Mark Newman, 57, who held senior leadership roles with Mainfreight for more than 20 years as chief executive of its European operations and general manager of its New Zealand transport business, was also appointed as a director of the TIL board on Tuesday.

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The changes are part of a shake up of the company that aims to grow profitability and boost its appeal to investors. TIL is a minnow with a market capitalisation of $115 million compared with its larger rival Mainfreight which is valued at $7.9 billion.

Dunphy describes himself as a “turnaround” specialist and said TIL is in need of some “tough love”.

Chris Dunphy and Mark Newman are transport industry veterans.

“The first priority is to fix what’s not working as well as it should,” he said. “The second priority is to really leverage on the skills that we have within the company to look for opportunities that are lucrative and growing.”

TIL chairman Trevor Janes said on Tuesday that the company is expecting a “modest” net profit for the year ended June 30, 2021, and is focused on delivering increased profit and a return to dividends in the coming year. Net profit halved to $2m in the 2020 year with no dividend payments to shareholders.

Dunphy said he will be looking to boost margins in the freight business which is lagging behind its peers.

“We have to do a lot of work in that business to get it to a point where it’s making acceptable returns,” he said. “That means we have to really make some hard decisions about what business we’re in and not in.”

He said there is an opportunity to pivot the company’s bulk fuel transport business to hydrogen, which could offer future growth in overseas markets.

Investors should see some impact from the turnaround this calendar year with material changes occurring through 2022, he said.

TIL plans to rebrand to Move across its divisions to help unite the business and its people.

Dunphy and Newman will head off early Wednesday morning on a 10-day road trip where they plan to poke into “every nook and cranny” of the company’s facilities and operations.

“We have freight in our DNA,” Dunphy said. “This is what we breathe, live and sleep.”

Born in the Bay of Plenty, Dunphy went to Papatoetoe High School in South Auckland and drove trucks to fund himself through his university studies in transport economics.

Dunphy said he comes “from a long illustrious line of truck drivers” and has been in and around the industry all his life.

He met Mainfreight founder Bruce Plested as a boy climbing Mt Wellington to photograph Mainfreight trucks in a convoy.

Newman has also spent most of his life in the freight industry.

He started working for Mainfreight as a 19-year-old doing odd jobs like sweeping the floor and scraping down and painting trailers.

Plested encouraged him to go to university, which hadn’t until then been on his radar and with a Bachelor of Commerce he became the company’s first graduate apart from Plested.

Newman said he hopes to bring his experience in staff development and culture, as well as his deep technical knowledge of the market to TIL’s board.

“The biggest joy that I got in my job was actively working with promoting and watching our team members flourish and develop into the leaders of the business,” he said.

TIL plans to rebrand under the Move banner of one of its subsidiaries to help create a stronger connection between its eight trading brands and across its people and culture.