July 24, 2024 • 36 mins
Rich-lister, Sunshine Books founder, and author of Teaching the World to Read, Dame Wendy Pye, shares her best and worst money stories with Liam Dann.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hi, I'm Liam Dan, New Zealand Herald Business Editor at
Large and welcome to this episode of Money Talks. This
is a podcast about money, but we're not going to
tell you how to get rich, and we're not going
to try and pick the next interest rate move. In
this series, I'll be talking to interesting New Zealanders about
how money has shaped their lives and what they've learned
(00:28):
over the years. For today's podcast, I'm joined by publisher,
entrepreneur and business leader and founder of Sunshine Books, Dame
Wendy pie Kyodo. Wendy, welcome to Money Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I want to dive into the backstory of how you
got to where you are now, but just to bring
us up to speed. What's the folks of the business
right now? You know at new markets. I heard that
you were moving into China, and I'm sure publishing generally,
you're having to transform digitally.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yes, we started the digital transformation about twenty five years ago,
right when people was still dial up. Of course it
was still a scratchy dial up and it wasn't even
really but I'd done well in America. I made a
lot of money in America. I built one hundred million
dollar company in America with a guy and I from
from one room, and we're very successful. And I sold
(01:19):
out just those rights, those particular rights for the American
Canadian rights, and because education is a very good business
in America. And I came home and thought, well, you
know what do I do? I was too young to
probably hang up the shingle, and I told a lot
of kids to read. So I thought, well, you know,
digital is the way to go. I saw kids playing
(01:40):
on the PlayStation. The first PlayStations were out, the first gaming,
which is pretty amateur when you look at it now,
how when you think of it as a promoted way.
So I built a building in Mount Wellington. Basically we
bought a team together from around the world. We put
to I thought, imagine if we could help kids learn
to read on a digital device. And so this was
really a journey we began on the digital.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yeah, so you've sort of been ahead of that curve.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
I was well ahead because I sort of thought it
woulded to be fabulous if you had a reading program.
We put a piece of white paper on the wall,
we put a team together and we said, let's make
it happen, you know, and I was amazed at what
five year olds could do. You know, we tested a
lot of kids looking at what they could do. And
again it was pretty primitive because in the sense that
we were using Flash, of course, which was a wonderful
(02:23):
device that Apple had developed. And later on, of course
they changed to HM well five and got rid of Apple.
We've got rid of all the Flash. And then I
went out to the world to sell it a dream
to the world, to teach the world to read for
fifty dollars, you know, that's really what my dream was. Yeah,
but of course people laughed at me, you know, people
said that can't be done. British Telecom said, you'll never
(02:44):
ever play, you know, a video on that. I wish
i'd had their business cards because.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Well, I'll come back to more of that, but I'd
like to jump right back, as we do in money talks,
just ask you maybe your first memories of having money
and do you remember, you know, when you might have
first held in your hand.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Oh yes, I think that. You know, cash is always king,
isn't it. Really, well, it was to a stage until
my last trip to China I realized there's no cash anymore.
No cash morning you have to have the weed chat.
But yeah, I think that it's sort of ownership is
really a helpful thing for you to own your own
house and to own things really and not this not
(03:26):
from a paranoia of awny things, but I think from
a business perspective, I think you have to live within
your means and you have to develop your strategies with money,
and money is money is a valuable asset, but of
course it only can only as good as it works
for you. Well, money sits under a mattress, it's no
good for you.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Looking back, looking back at through the book, really at
your early childhood, it was it sounds like it was
a fairly tough life on the farm in Western Australia,
but there wouldn't have been a lot of wouldn't have
been a lot of pocket money, And.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Sure there wasn't a lot of pocket money, but really
it was tough, but to torture resilience and then from
later on and it's really helped me because it has
been tough building a business internationally, building a business for example,
you know in Africa and places where you go into
the outback, to the real outback actually into a townships
and working with Mandela and people that we worked with
(04:15):
in South Africa when he came to power. But you know,
I think the thing is that it taught me resilience
and it taught me to survive. Really, you have to
be a survivor. I think all exporters and all pioneering
exporters know about that as well.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I mean, one of the stories that struck me was
because we often ask about pocket money and the first
things you saved for, but it didn't sound like there
was any money involved. But you're getting your first bike
was a really big deal in your childhood, and yes
it was really big.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
You know. We used to then paint it with enamel
and make sure it look like brand new, that sort
of thing. But then I think at that time, it
was really an interesting time in history. When you talk
about you're talking about the late fifties and you're talking
about sixty late fifties, it was you're talking about really
a time. You know, I was born in forty three,
of course before the war ended, and but you're talking
about a time that really a lot of people didn't
(05:02):
have much money, but it wasn't. The reason I've written
the book too is because I really get rather tired
of people telling me, you know, I can't make it
because I was you know, I was impoverished or whatever
I was, I rubbish. Just get out there and make
it happen. And I think that what I've proved as
you can.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, yeah, and you did. You did get out there.
I mean you left home, you headed for Sydney, I guess.
And did you feel like you had a strong base
in your school and academic learning. Did you go out
with a vision for what you wanted to do.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I had a bit of a vision and I could
work hard and control the world. But that's okay, it's
in an operative term of controlling the world. But I
feel that, you know, hard work is never and really
nobody ows you are living. That's what we were brought
out on. We were brought up on the principal there
was so such a thing as a welfare system as
you were living or you know, and that really played
(05:55):
into during the COVID years. For example, you know, I
didn't apply for a grant from the government coffice. I
mean we didn't need it. I mean, we could survive.
I was surprised and how many people, how many business people,
of leading business people in this country, who actually supplied.
They couldn't get their application in quick enough for the
government trough, you know. I mean I think that what
you have to do is you have to learn to
(06:16):
survive within your own means of what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, I mean I read that you had some interest
in maybe being a journalist and tried to go for
that to start with. Wasn't to be, but then you
kind of ended up back in that world.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
That's right, I just ended up first of all. It's basically,
you know, writing copy and being creative and ciking up
creative ideas because I'm a bit of a dream and
really from the best of times, you know, I dream
about a business opportunity and I often think about you know,
and when I approach any business opportunity, it's so I
always call it. It's either a war or climbing a mountain.
Often you're on so somebody says, where are you at
(06:50):
that stage? So I sit on the landing craft. Haven't
even reached the beach yet. You've got to climb up
the hill first. And that people are shooting at you
other opposition companies, which is quite a good strategy to
a degree.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yeah, Yeah, I mean, it sounds like, I mean, the
first part of your career sounds and I'm probably jumping here.
I should really ask you what it was that brought
you to New Zealand and how you ended up here.
I suppose you know, having grown up in Western Australia,
started a career in Sydney was a sort of a
part of the plan to leave Australia.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Now, it really wasn't part of the plan. It was
just that I flatted with a couple of girls and
you know, like you're normally flat and we fled on
the north shore of Sydney and one of them came
from New Zealand, and I thought, you know, I might
as well go and explore New Zealand. I really want
to travel wider afield. I met my husband and that
was the problem.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
You see, you get married, so you basically settled down.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
That's what happened.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Yeah, but you continued the career and you know, through
those years to the point where you got to running
the publishing side of things for I think it was
New Zealand News Group.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Right, So it was.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
It was quite a successful career in its own right
to that point at a time when you probably had
to work pretty hard as a woman to bash through
some vi it.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Was successful in the corporate world, was very successful and
really in the book of course, so featured it, you know.
Actually it was in his own herald, published a couple
of articles and said what has she done? Done something right,
you know, And so it was. It was difficult. It
was interesting time. Remember it was a few years before
the stock market crash of all times and men. Everyone
(08:18):
talks about the two thousand and eight stop the stop
marker crash recently, but really that was a brutal crash
and that came as a crash of all times really
when you look at it in a retrospect and history
of New Zealand and the companies that lost their business
and everything, and so it was a tough you know.
It was a time when everyone was high flying. You'd
make a million and a ten minutes and another million
(08:39):
another ten minutes, you know what I mean. It was
a sort of one of those incredible times.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Well, it's interesting to me looking at how a newspaper
group was. I mean, I guess they had the printing presses,
but they had such a large publishing division that they
were doing children's books as a newspaper publisher.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yes, well I first started to get into publishing a book.
Side was that, you know, I don't know whether you
know remember Never where Never were used to be a
great smoker. He to smoke about thirty five cigarettes day
or something. But he was a typical type of the
typical type of head of a newspaper group that you have,
you know, like a sort of like a sit there
(09:15):
and you know, the editor don't say what we don't know,
and that's sort of thing. Yeah, Never called me in
and said, you know, we had to start a book company.
We've got to start a book company because and you're
the one to do it, et cetera, et cetera. So
that's how I first got into publishing books. And it
was mainly things like columns that we would do, you know,
cooking columns and other things that we're doing, and mainly
(09:36):
our feature writers, particularly also from the Chroshier start, because
we owned the Cross Your Stara as well at the time,
and so basically we would put those together in a
book form and sell them and sell them through the newspaper.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Columnists would have a book, have.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
A book out and sort of and then later on
I published, of course, I worked, you know, with Pat Booth,
and people are publishing the mister Asia Vhiles, they publish
Penguin published them, but we put them together.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Yeah, sure were children's books in the mix at that point.
Were you interested?
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Not really? I was sort of I started looking at
children's books in the sense of looking at all alternative
things because we it was you know, it wasn't terribly
lucrative of the division that I ran, and I always hate,
you know, on that corporate You know, when they do
those corporate family trees, you find a sort of a
shaky line in a business and it's a sort of
(10:25):
like a cross line that looks like it's going to
fall off any moment. So you know, I wasn't going
to allow the directors to come and say we'll get
rid of that division to right that they tend to do.
You know, we're restructuring today. Well, you know, nothing changes.
We're restructuring, and as you all know that, it's a
massive thing, just like the media industry now. Yeah, well,
and it's been a massive restructing.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Constant changing too more. I mean, you probably had one
of the biggest shocks though of all, you know, Briley
Group Corporate takeover merchants. They came in and just took
the whole thing over and restructured it overnight.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Right. But in fairness to the BRIDI group, you know,
I was one of the chosen people who they really
trained and it's really it really helped me. I mean,
Bryce Hancocks was an interesting guy. You know. He used
to go in and say, it's very easy to take
over companies today, and you just go in and all
the directors are asleep in the corner and just take them,
you know what I mean. It was sort of an
I spent many times having a chat to him on
(11:17):
the private Briley plane at the airport, which was quite
a big thing because you know, when you were sort
of a minion in the in the corporate to be
invited on the thing. And really they were taking over companies,
looking at mergers and taking over at that time, and
if you looked at history, it was an incredible amount
of mergers and things they took over. And so when
they really looked at you know, it was a difficult
(11:38):
job when I was given the job of the Weekly
because basically the Weekly had been the cash cow for
the ordul start that the evening newspapers were dying dying
around the world as well, and it had been a
long time, and the weekly was really the cash cow
that they used to drag the money from because it
was an advertising cow. But then of course suddenly everything changed.
(11:59):
There was you know, Roger brought out the Metro, There
was a whole lot of magazines coming out. There was
glossy paper. We were on newsprint. Can you believe half
the advertisements of three Dimensional as they were badly printed.
And so I was given that job to restructure it,
which is quite difficult.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
So you're right in the thick of it. But then
at some point, and this might be the best thing
that ever happened in your career, you get made redundant.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Well, I think the man who fired me have often
said that, he said, I saw the vision.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
All right, he says that now, which is probably feel like.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Rubbish. Yeah, it was a good thing. It's sometimes sometimes
in life, you know, we we have periods of our
life where we go through in business looking at business
deals and reflecting on business deals you've done, and what
you should have done and what you shouldn't have done,
and things like that, and it's really interesting, you know,
I think that and the time, it just probably gave
me a coal shower, as I call it. It was
(12:58):
a long coal shower.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Easy. Yeah, it's a big, big choice you have to
make though at that stage of life, to get made redundant.
You know, you could go and see the recruitment people
and find another corporate job, but you decided to back
yourself and start your own business. Can you tell me
a little bit about the thinking behind that and what
sort of gave you the confidence to have a go?
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Well, I thought of you know, it really comes back
to this some ip and owning everything I own now
and what you have is that I just decided that
no bastard would ever walk me off the place, no
bustard whatever. And it excuse me swearing, but would never
take me off the place. But you know, I'd spend
twenty one years building up companies. I'd open the American market.
I pioneered the development of education into the American market.
(13:40):
There's a huge there was a huge opportunity of huge
things that I did, and I thought, you know, they
don't appreciate and really a lot of job offers came
in from marketing manager or you know, I could do
that a production manager, marketing manager, et cetera, et cetera,
and you know, to pay the wages, the first wages.
I work for Uncle Rupert, you know, I mean Uncle
Rupert's always available. Probably well I'm probably not now he's
(14:03):
ninety three or something. But what I'm saying is that
I worked for I worked for Rupert the Murdoch Group,
you know, developing a strategy as well, just for a while,
because that paid the wages. You know, you've got to
have cash to pay wages for the couple of stuff
that I bought with me.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
But you could see potential for this line of educational publishing,
I guess, even though you know in New Zealand you've
got the school journals and it's a bit more locked
up here. But you could see that there was a
role for the private sector in that.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Well, all the contacts i'd made before came to me.
The world came to me literally, I mean literally, the
world just phoned me and said and it was only phone,
of course, we were just the Internet was just hadn't
even been developed totally. But of course see you know
fax machines or in operation, that was all and you know,
they phoned and said what are you going to do?
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah, and you already had you must have already had
good contacts with I had with the children right children's
writers and people who.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I had the contacts, and all the writers and all
the people came to me. But you know, the company
then tried you to destroy me. On New Year's Eve,
they on Christmas Eve, they delivered a thing you know
that you can't publish. You know, I didn't have a
clause in any contract or anything. In those days, you
didn't have contracts that said you know, you can't do
this or you can't do that, you know that sort
(15:15):
of thing. And they came at me and said that
you know, you can't publish books. Well, I thought that
was ridiculous. So I set up what we call the
subterfuge of a two mirror way, you know, which I
think is good for business. Really, you have a suburban
lawyer and then you have the top guy in town recording,
and they don't know because they think it's a suburban
(15:36):
lawyer writing the letters when you're fighting, and it was
pretty pretty scary. I mean, at that time they were
about an eighty million dollar organization totally I'm talking about
with everything you know you're fighting them, you know, from
the bench from a picture.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
But they hadn't put it out of contract that they had.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Basically, they never had any contract. They never had lead
to stand on. But we actually proved a case that
you know, it was an American case, interesting enough, that
was proved that refrigerator is a refrigerator. It looks a
shape of refrigerator. A book is a book, and no
one can copyright the actual shape that they can cooperate
in an unusual shape, but the normal rectangular shape. All
(16:13):
the thing was I had actually developed that anyway with children.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Well that's right, you'd brought that style yourself.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Rubbish, right, so anyway, but never mind. And they also
contacted all the people I hadn't dealt with and told them,
you know, they wouldn't deal with them a probably, And
all the people write back to me and said, what
a load of rubbish, which telling me to get lost.
So that's good.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Look, you know, coming through the publishing side, I know
you've got good writers and everything involved, but is there
a sense that you have a sort of the idea
that you've got to feel for what kids would like
and that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Feeling? Yeah, where do you think that comes from from yourself,
for that's right, and that's sort of a it's a
gut feeling of what works. And now, of course, after
forty years of working the markets, I have a gut
feeling I know what actually works in different markets and
and what actually can develop in a market working very
close with distributors on the ground and now case I
(17:03):
have a company in my own company in Australia, but
distributors on the ground and people who are developing content
and developing curriculum. I only wish that you know, New
Zealand wouldn't get to really nervous about me. I think,
you know, Ministry of Education is always nervous about me
because they always think I'm taking over or something which
is rubbish.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Well, there is a lot of I mean, the way
the systems run here, it's quite different compared to America,
for example.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Compeople with Australia compared with everywhere in the world except
Russia and Cuba. I think, I think you know, it's
the same. But it's quite sad really because you know,
we're a very small country and all I dream of
is that we all should work together to achieve, particularly
the output for Mara and Pacific Onland children. We can't
actually allow all of these children not to learn to read,
and we need help from everybody, and we need to
(17:50):
sit down. And it doesn't you know, just because I'm
a commercial organization, I say, I don't see. You know,
I give a lot of voluntary time and I give
a lot of things away as well. But you know,
what's the hand up? Hang up? But there seems to
still be a hang up.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yeah, yeah, that's tough, I guess, you know, because it's understanding,
Like really, to get kids to read, they have to
want to something is to appeal with the content and
the book or whatever they've got on screen. It's got
to be something.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
And you've got to move with the times too, you know,
you've got to modernize, you've got to learn a new
generation of kids coming through different kids. We learn a lot.
And that's the project I'm working on at the moment.
It's a really interesting project.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Can you talk about it or yeah, sure, sure.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
You know, I want to. I'm really really interested in
the power of the gaming industry. I think gaming is
a really interesting thing. It seems to be occupying a
lot of people, children and a lot of effort. So
what my dream is to have basically really good educational games,
(18:51):
not just educational games that will deliver not just something
about a giraffe running around the letter G on the
screen or something not like that, not like a sysame
streets stream. It's fine, but it's a fun thing, you know,
with children running around, and even ABC mouse, you know,
a Apple is the same sort of thing. What I'm
doing is I want to create something that will be deliverable.
In other words, that every child, particularly children who have difficulty,
(19:14):
particularly children who are dyslexic. Imagine if we can use
the gaming for the gaming magic and we can marry
that with solid educational And that's what I'm working on
at the moment with TL Education. And they're about a
four point four billion. I love to say those numbers.
It's like Fonterra, isn't it. But you know, they partner
(19:35):
with me and we're working and they see the dream too,
and they are gaming a top gaming company in the
world actually, and so I'm working with them on That's
what I was doing in China a couple of weeks ago.
So I don't know whether I'll pull it off, but
who knows.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
That's where to go. I mean, it's obviously if you
can get kids. It's that thing of passing the next level.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
If you can get the most the bag of a car.
You know, you kids say are we there yet? Are
we there yet? They can be using them bof phone
and learning to read at the same time. How's that
thinking out looking out the window? You know what kids
are like? Are we there yet? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (20:13):
I want to come back to some bigger thoughts about
fixing some aspects of New Zealand and things. But just
we've got a few we have a few quick fire
questions that we like to run through, and one of
them is what the poorest you ever have been?
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Is?
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Do you think any stage in your life, you know,
what stage in your life would you have been?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
I think when you first marry you're always like that.
You know, you're paying your house off, you're getting the
bolt meat or something fitted in your secondhand fridge that
goes blank in your washing machine, washing machine breaks down,
you know, I think that, Yeah, we just live within
our means, but you know, and so it's a sort
of a tough time. It's always a tough time in
(20:50):
the sense that you see other people, you know, doing things,
and you know, painting houses. I was good at painting
houses because I'm left handed and I was born left hand.
I was basically left handed, but I had to eat
my right because in school they force you to left hand.
So I'm ambidexterous. So it's very handy, and you know,
I've got six foot each with my arms. It's very
handy when you're painting the outside of a house because
(21:11):
you can just switch your brush over and just keep
on painting. You know, I painted a lot of houses
as well.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Were you a good, good, good budgeter and all that
sort of stuff, or were you're a spender.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
When you have to live within your means. I always
believe that you have to live within your means. I
think that people can compromise, so you don't you don't
necessarily have to, you know, have to live extravagantly or anything.
I think that you know, well, I'm a good cook
as well, so probably that's probably helps.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah, sure. I mean the other question we have as
along those lines of what would be the most indulgent
purchase you've ever made, or what are the things that
you like to splash.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
I think the first was a sports car because I
wanted a fast so I like fast cars really. But
the trouble is a Lamborghini or for the problem is
they're too low to the ground. Now I can't climb
into those. I need something a bit higher. But you know,
I quite like Sabek she SAB's gone off the market now.
But they were quite fun. You know, they were sports cars,
and it was a sports car that I bought. And
(22:09):
other things emeralds, beautiful pearls that emeralds that took six
months to find in South America. You know, there's a
few indulgent things that I have done, well, a few
naughty things. There are points of racehorses and racehorses. That's
one of my favors.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
I was talking to Rod Jerke as well, and he
couldn't think of anything, and then he said, oh, and
the race horses, because obviously they cost a bit of
money and a lot of and it's it's anyone who's
got the moys is It is a bit of a
money trap. While we're on the money topic, I asked
that author Emily Perkins about this. Do you have a
(22:47):
favorite book or any any favorite sort of writers or
advice and things on money? But you know that you
would you would look to or that you that influenced
you necessarily.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
On money, my favorite books at Water bog his zimbiographies.
I'm always fascinated how somebody has become what they've done,
so there's life they do in life, and how they
achieve things and everything else. On money, I'm always interested
in new developments, particularly my husband and I have a
large portfolio. We invest in things like mainly in the
(23:22):
medical field and the new development of cancer drugs and
other things, particularly the American market. I'm very fond of
the American market, investing in that because it does give
you a good return. And also we look at I'm
really interested obviously in AI now and what's happening with
AI and the development of AI as well. But in
the medical field there's a lot of new advances which
(23:44):
are fantastic because we are on the verge of discovery
of many things and they are fantastic. You can and
also minerals as well. I love minerals. Actually I love minerals.
I love Old Shane and digging up the ground with
his minerals or whatever he's going to do. But I'm
not sure there's two billion dollars worth of gold in
the South Island all.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Dollars century, didn't they But yeah, so I guess you're
investing in areas where you actually find some interest. You know,
there's something interesting.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Well, it's sort of interesting because you know, you can
buy shares at a few cents and they can become you know.
But you know, I'm one one of the original investors
in Apple, for example, and when we've bought the first
Apple for five dollars, the sharebroker who remained nameless in
Auckland said, what are you buying those four? You're not
going to do anything with Apple? Right? You know? Well
famous last words, isn't it. We're a large shareholder and Apple,
(24:36):
but you know, and of course it never paid a
dividend for a long time. It's not the dividend we're
looking at. It's mainly the growth of the of the
share portfolio. In the sense when you're looking at an
investment portfolio, you've really got to look at you know,
unless you're trading. If you're trading shares, it's different. But
if you're looking at the longer term, so medical shares,
mineral shares, and also technology shares.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Yeah, the things I like to ask in it because
you know, obviously you've done well and the money. You know,
you keep earning money and investing in things. But is it,
you know, what drives you?
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Is it the money so much? Or is there to
buy product of sort of success and other goals.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
It's a challenge of the hunt. Really, it's a challenge
of the hunt. I think that, you know, I like
to think I'm developing a new product that will benefit
a lot of people. None of my product is very ethical,
and I feel it's ethical as well. And I also
help a lot of people as well. But I think that,
you know, there's nothing wrong with making money out of
helping people. People have this thing about you know, what's
(25:35):
wrong with you know. I mean, you've got to help,
but you've got to put something back into the community
as well. And I do that through my through my
association and my things that I'm associated with, my charities
and things. But I think also it's the challenge of
the hunt. Really, it's the fun where you pitch yourself
against the giants. And if you think about the major
(25:56):
publishing houses of the world have all now been purchased
by equity. The equity people are really interested in education,
they love education. The reason they love it is because
under the if we tomorrow morning had a recession, the
two things that the government never cuts out, apart from
crime and punishment or something they can't the health and education.
(26:17):
They are the two things that they fund. They might miss,
you know, you might have to go put up with
old potholes for about another two months or something, do
you know what I mean? But health and education. And
even looking at the budget this year, if you looked
at the budget, and you looked at the budget in Australia,
you looked at the budget, you know, even if we'll
have a new president hopew I don't know whether we
will have old presidents in America, one of the budgets,
(26:39):
the budgets, even though the Americans say something different this morning,
the budgets will still say fairly static in education and
education is a key factor that most countries invest in
quite heavily. Governments so and they also pay their bills,
which is quite a big thing too. You know, like
if you looked at if you looked at some of
the corporates who have earned New Zealand, particularly at the moment,
(27:00):
or any corporates who have suffered some equity problems. You
look at the ratio of how many days are waiting
for payments, you understand, well, you don't have that in
education because governments pay bills and so you know, unless
the government go maybe France will go to the wall.
But what I'm saying is that you know currently, that's
(27:21):
why the equity guys it's a good return, and it's
in some ways it's a safe thing, you know, like
it's some in some ways if you looked at a portfolio.
You know, I often think of a board of directors
looking at a portfolio and thinking what are we going
to invest in next? And you know when people say
it's education, you know, oh my grandchildren, Oh very good.
You know, people feel good about education where they don't
(27:42):
feel good about probably products that may be some new
thing that someone's developing. So I think it's a safe bet.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Yeah, it must have made I mean, you sold the
US business years ago.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Only the rights to write, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
The right, but you know you must have had it
must be attractive to other equity groups. You do you
have to say offend.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
It's sort of as I don't really find people because
most people don't know what I do. I don't think
I think, I think it's the crazy lady who should
be in a retirement release something they don't know what
to do. But yeah, it's just the huge amount of
assets we have, you know, the property in publishing houses.
It's not really it's not really the revenue that you're
earning today. It's really the backlist and what you what
(28:23):
you ownly the value and that's a huge value because
you can You've seen that with lots of MGM, Ted
Turner buying all the pacts of the film. You've seen
that at many times if you looked at if you
looked at equity, you look at what the backlist can create.
So therefore, in the sense of when you look at it,
you can repackage it, you can redesign it. We're repackaging
(28:46):
something for China at the moment there was published thirty
six years ago. You so it never loses its ability
to be able to generate more income without a huge investment.
So in other words, if you have a list of
product and you can repackage that product for a minimum cost,
you don't have to reinvent the wheel. And now with
(29:07):
digital and now the new developments were digital and the
new things there's new opportunities.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Yeah, you've never felt like, you know, cashing out and
stepping back.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
But if I feel but you know, I've got a
lot of champagne, so I don't have to worry too much.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
I guess that's the question.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Is I enjoin what they're doing? Yeah, I'm enjoying what
I'm doing. I think sometimes you get a bit tired.
And my husband's in his mid eighties. Now you get
a bit tired. But really, you know, I think that
what do you need? You know, I don't sort of need.
I don't need some interviewer to go on and have
famous houses of New Zealand three thousand bedrooms or something.
(29:43):
You know, I'm not really you know, I've got a
lovely apartment in New York. I've got an apartment in London.
I've got lots of race horses. I wish they'd win.
But you know, what else do you need? You can
only eat so much in a day anyway, and I
work with wonderful friends around the world.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Sure. Just to finish up on a couple of bigger questions,
one of them is when you look back at it
and you touched on it earlier, your background not a
lot of money, you know, and really real humble beginnings.
What do you think it is that makes the big
difference in terms of success, in terms of why some
people get stuck in a poverty trap and some people
(30:17):
get out and escape. Is this something that you think
is a sort of a defining characteristic.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
I think resilience. You know, people have tried to eliminate me,
people have tried to lock me up almost you just
have to keep going. You know, it's pretty hard sometimes
you do. I think if you learn as a child
that you know, basically you learn sort of solid values,
and I think you have to learn values that you know,
(30:44):
you don't go through life cheating people. You look at
things that are responsible in the way you develop your property,
the way I develop because you know, one of the
difficulties is that I suppose if I talked about a difficulty,
is it all of my staff have been with me
so long? I mean, you know, who's got an art
director fifty years celebrated fifty years the other day. My
(31:04):
secretary is forty eight years. I mean we're talking about
people my time company. Wow, of all these people, of course,
and you know, so maybe it'll have to be the
Sunshine retirement village. Maybe I'll take y Ryman on at
their own job.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I don't know if you've ever thought
about politics, But one question I'd like to ask really
is if we could make your prime Minister for the
day and give you a chance to change some policy.
Would there be a big policy or a big change
you'd make to try and solve some of the social
inequality problems that are out there. What would be the
number one for you?
Speaker 2 (31:36):
I need to find it looking at a practical way
and take one example. You know, we talk about children
not going to school, which is tragic at the moment,
and I worked a lot in Northland on some charity
projects over the last five years. It's no use just
sending a notice to people. I'm going to find you
if you don't bring your child to school. You know,
I would tend to really really work with the EWE,
(31:58):
and I think in this country we need to work
together to solve the issue. We don't need to have
you know I'm going to do this and you're going
to do that, do you know? I mean really, at
the end of the day, if we work together to
solve the issue, I believe we could come up with
a solution, and a solution maybe is And I've looked
at this Northern project quite a lot. You know, what
(32:18):
brings the kids to school? You know, maybe we need
a minibus to pick these kids up from school, but
we do need we do need wonderful Mari people to
go to those families. If it's a Mari family or
if it's a European family, we can work with Europeans
to go to those and to find really what the
issues are and really work with those children and really
make sure those kids come to school. Once we get
(32:39):
them to school, we're fine, you know, we can do
something with them. But it really just stresses me to
have children at even an Odho college. You know, fifteen
sixteen year old boys who can't read. This is terrible,
This is absolutely terrible. What are they going to do?
What do you do with a nine year old ram
Raider or ten year old shelter ram rais What you
do with that? That is terrible? You know, it's not
(33:01):
just it's a social issue as well that we have
to look at and we can't just leave it to
everyone else. We've actually got to say, how is that
I know that I've tried to work and wrote a
room with the Murray people. I know sometimes they say,
you know this parkiher Australian. Helen Clark used to say,
she's an Australian. We can put up with her. She
brags too much. But you know what I'm saying. I
work with Hellen a lot. But you know, I think
that we need to look at these solutions. And it's
(33:24):
not easy. By the way, this is not easy. But
you can't just make jargon. You know. I hate jargon,
you know, I just I just need to say. It's
like people contact me and say we're doing a deep
dive and I say, oh, I hope you're giving the
snork will be it? We tend to have all these
jargon things. What actually do they mean? I mean, what
does it mean? You know? How are you going to
svolve a particular problem? A lot of these problems are
(33:47):
quite simple to solve, but and they ask are supposed
complex from a family point of view. But we do
need to look you know. I felt so sad yesterday
last night. I felt really sad. Our boots to the
office today reading about how many families have to turn
electricity off. Electricity that was a really really amazing article
(34:09):
in the Herald and I read it last night and
I felt so sad. Here we are as a nation
where we have to have children to go to a
swimming complex so they can have a hot shower, and
some families are doing without power for like three weeks
or something. You know, that's just not good enough? Is it?
In a country like ours? That's not good enough? And
that's not just a matter of money. That's a matter
(34:31):
of looking at the issues are and saying how we're
going to solve it.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Yeah, absolutely, well, look, just finally when the I know
we touched on it earlier, but what's on the immediate
horizon for the publishing group?
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Okay, well, we're working on obviously just working on the
famous you know, decodable readers, you know, which we have
to godable readers which children can decode. And looking at
the way how we teach and structured literacy, the way
we teach in that way, and we'd develop that with
professors and other people around the world. Develop we've got
the best structured literacy program. People haven't would it? They
(35:02):
need to buy it now anyway, getting a commercial but
that the situation is it delivers an outcome and also
looking at really my dream will marry education and gaming
together to create one of the great games for all
children of the world who are struggling with reading. Can
you imagine every four and five year old and six
(35:24):
year old and that'll probably be a wonderful footprint. Will
I achieve it? I'm not sure. The third partner is
out there, the third partner of Some people are interested,
but the big guys have said, you'll never achieve it, Wendy,
because nobody that motivates me more than anything. No one
has ever done this in the world before, so you
won't do it right. So actually that motivates me more
when people say that. And also working with China as
(35:47):
well in some of the projects I'm working. I love
the Chinese and the Asian market is fantastic.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Well, it sounds like there's no slowing down. Thank you
very much for talking to us. Cheers, Wendy Pie. Thank
you thanks for listening to this episode of Money. If
you want to get in touch, drop me a line
at Liam dot Dan at ZIBM dot co dot NZID
and you can read more from me at inzidherld dot
co dot MZID. Thanks to my producer Ethan Sills and
(36:14):
sound engineer Liann McDonald follow Money Talks on iHeartRadio or
wherever you get your podcasts, with new episodes available every Thursday.
Hi, I'm Liam Dan, New Zealand Herald Business Editor at
Large and welcome to this episode of Money Talks. This
is a podcast about money, but we're not going to
tell you how to get rich, and we're not going
to try and pick the next interest rate move. In
this series, I'll be talking to interesting New Zealanders about
how money has shaped their lives and what they've learned
(00:28):
over the years. For today's podcast, I'm joined by publisher,
entrepreneur and business leader and founder of Sunshine Books, Dame
Wendy pie Kyodo. Wendy, welcome to Money Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I want to dive into the backstory of how you
got to where you are now, but just to bring
us up to speed. What's the folks of the business
right now? You know at new markets. I heard that
you were moving into China, and I'm sure publishing generally,
you're having to transform digitally.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yes, we started the digital transformation about twenty five years ago,
right when people was still dial up. Of course it
was still a scratchy dial up and it wasn't even
really but I'd done well in America. I made a
lot of money in America. I built one hundred million
dollar company in America with a guy and I from
from one room, and we're very successful. And I sold
(01:19):
out just those rights, those particular rights for the American
Canadian rights, and because education is a very good business
in America. And I came home and thought, well, you
know what do I do? I was too young to
probably hang up the shingle, and I told a lot
of kids to read. So I thought, well, you know,
digital is the way to go. I saw kids playing
(01:40):
on the PlayStation. The first PlayStations were out, the first gaming,
which is pretty amateur when you look at it now,
how when you think of it as a promoted way.
So I built a building in Mount Wellington. Basically we
bought a team together from around the world. We put
to I thought, imagine if we could help kids learn
to read on a digital device. And so this was
really a journey we began on the digital.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yeah, so you've sort of been ahead of that curve.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
I was well ahead because I sort of thought it
woulded to be fabulous if you had a reading program.
We put a piece of white paper on the wall,
we put a team together and we said, let's make
it happen, you know, and I was amazed at what
five year olds could do. You know, we tested a
lot of kids looking at what they could do. And
again it was pretty primitive because in the sense that
we were using Flash, of course, which was a wonderful
(02:23):
device that Apple had developed. And later on, of course
they changed to HM well five and got rid of Apple.
We've got rid of all the Flash. And then I
went out to the world to sell it a dream
to the world, to teach the world to read for
fifty dollars, you know, that's really what my dream was. Yeah,
but of course people laughed at me, you know, people
said that can't be done. British Telecom said, you'll never
(02:44):
ever play, you know, a video on that. I wish
i'd had their business cards because.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Well, I'll come back to more of that, but I'd
like to jump right back, as we do in money talks,
just ask you maybe your first memories of having money
and do you remember, you know, when you might have
first held in your hand.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Oh yes, I think that. You know, cash is always king,
isn't it. Really, well, it was to a stage until
my last trip to China I realized there's no cash anymore.
No cash morning you have to have the weed chat.
But yeah, I think that it's sort of ownership is
really a helpful thing for you to own your own
house and to own things really and not this not
(03:26):
from a paranoia of awny things, but I think from
a business perspective, I think you have to live within
your means and you have to develop your strategies with money,
and money is money is a valuable asset, but of
course it only can only as good as it works
for you. Well, money sits under a mattress, it's no
good for you.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Looking back, looking back at through the book, really at
your early childhood, it was it sounds like it was
a fairly tough life on the farm in Western Australia,
but there wouldn't have been a lot of wouldn't have
been a lot of pocket money, And.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Sure there wasn't a lot of pocket money, but really
it was tough, but to torture resilience and then from
later on and it's really helped me because it has
been tough building a business internationally, building a business for example,
you know in Africa and places where you go into
the outback, to the real outback actually into a townships
and working with Mandela and people that we worked with
(04:15):
in South Africa when he came to power. But you know,
I think the thing is that it taught me resilience
and it taught me to survive. Really, you have to
be a survivor. I think all exporters and all pioneering
exporters know about that as well.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I mean, one of the stories that struck me was
because we often ask about pocket money and the first
things you saved for, but it didn't sound like there
was any money involved. But you're getting your first bike
was a really big deal in your childhood, and yes
it was really big.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
You know. We used to then paint it with enamel
and make sure it look like brand new, that sort
of thing. But then I think at that time, it
was really an interesting time in history. When you talk
about you're talking about the late fifties and you're talking
about sixty late fifties, it was you're talking about really
a time. You know, I was born in forty three,
of course before the war ended, and but you're talking
about a time that really a lot of people didn't
(05:02):
have much money, but it wasn't. The reason I've written
the book too is because I really get rather tired
of people telling me, you know, I can't make it
because I was you know, I was impoverished or whatever
I was, I rubbish. Just get out there and make
it happen. And I think that what I've proved as
you can.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, yeah, and you did. You did get out there.
I mean you left home, you headed for Sydney, I guess.
And did you feel like you had a strong base
in your school and academic learning. Did you go out
with a vision for what you wanted to do.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I had a bit of a vision and I could
work hard and control the world. But that's okay, it's
in an operative term of controlling the world. But I
feel that, you know, hard work is never and really
nobody ows you are living. That's what we were brought
out on. We were brought up on the principal there
was so such a thing as a welfare system as
you were living or you know, and that really played
(05:55):
into during the COVID years. For example, you know, I
didn't apply for a grant from the government coffice. I
mean we didn't need it. I mean, we could survive.
I was surprised and how many people, how many business people,
of leading business people in this country, who actually supplied.
They couldn't get their application in quick enough for the
government trough, you know. I mean I think that what
you have to do is you have to learn to
(06:16):
survive within your own means of what you're doing.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, I mean I read that you had some interest
in maybe being a journalist and tried to go for
that to start with. Wasn't to be, but then you
kind of ended up back in that world.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
That's right, I just ended up first of all. It's basically,
you know, writing copy and being creative and ciking up
creative ideas because I'm a bit of a dream and
really from the best of times, you know, I dream
about a business opportunity and I often think about you know,
and when I approach any business opportunity, it's so I
always call it. It's either a war or climbing a mountain.
Often you're on so somebody says, where are you at
(06:50):
that stage? So I sit on the landing craft. Haven't
even reached the beach yet. You've got to climb up
the hill first. And that people are shooting at you
other opposition companies, which is quite a good strategy to
a degree.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yeah, Yeah, I mean, it sounds like, I mean, the
first part of your career sounds and I'm probably jumping here.
I should really ask you what it was that brought
you to New Zealand and how you ended up here.
I suppose you know, having grown up in Western Australia,
started a career in Sydney was a sort of a
part of the plan to leave Australia.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Now, it really wasn't part of the plan. It was
just that I flatted with a couple of girls and
you know, like you're normally flat and we fled on
the north shore of Sydney and one of them came
from New Zealand, and I thought, you know, I might
as well go and explore New Zealand. I really want
to travel wider afield. I met my husband and that
was the problem.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
You see, you get married, so you basically settled down.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
That's what happened.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Yeah, but you continued the career and you know, through
those years to the point where you got to running
the publishing side of things for I think it was
New Zealand News Group.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Right, So it was.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
It was quite a successful career in its own right
to that point at a time when you probably had
to work pretty hard as a woman to bash through
some vi it.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Was successful in the corporate world, was very successful and
really in the book of course, so featured it, you know.
Actually it was in his own herald, published a couple
of articles and said what has she done? Done something right,
you know, And so it was. It was difficult. It
was interesting time. Remember it was a few years before
the stock market crash of all times and men. Everyone
(08:18):
talks about the two thousand and eight stop the stop
marker crash recently, but really that was a brutal crash
and that came as a crash of all times really
when you look at it in a retrospect and history
of New Zealand and the companies that lost their business
and everything, and so it was a tough you know.
It was a time when everyone was high flying. You'd
make a million and a ten minutes and another million
(08:39):
another ten minutes, you know what I mean. It was
a sort of one of those incredible times.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Well, it's interesting to me looking at how a newspaper
group was. I mean, I guess they had the printing presses,
but they had such a large publishing division that they
were doing children's books as a newspaper publisher.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yes, well I first started to get into publishing a book.
Side was that, you know, I don't know whether you
know remember Never where Never were used to be a
great smoker. He to smoke about thirty five cigarettes day
or something. But he was a typical type of the
typical type of head of a newspaper group that you have,
you know, like a sort of like a sit there
(09:15):
and you know, the editor don't say what we don't know,
and that's sort of thing. Yeah, Never called me in
and said, you know, we had to start a book company.
We've got to start a book company because and you're
the one to do it, et cetera, et cetera. So
that's how I first got into publishing books. And it
was mainly things like columns that we would do, you know,
cooking columns and other things that we're doing, and mainly
(09:36):
our feature writers, particularly also from the Chroshier start, because
we owned the Cross Your Stara as well at the time,
and so basically we would put those together in a
book form and sell them and sell them through the newspaper.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Columnists would have a book, have.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
A book out and sort of and then later on
I published, of course, I worked, you know, with Pat Booth,
and people are publishing the mister Asia Vhiles, they publish
Penguin published them, but we put them together.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Yeah, sure were children's books in the mix at that point.
Were you interested?
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Not really? I was sort of I started looking at
children's books in the sense of looking at all alternative
things because we it was you know, it wasn't terribly
lucrative of the division that I ran, and I always hate,
you know, on that corporate You know, when they do
those corporate family trees, you find a sort of a
shaky line in a business and it's a sort of
(10:25):
like a cross line that looks like it's going to
fall off any moment. So you know, I wasn't going
to allow the directors to come and say we'll get
rid of that division to right that they tend to do.
You know, we're restructuring today. Well, you know, nothing changes.
We're restructuring, and as you all know that, it's a
massive thing, just like the media industry now. Yeah, well,
and it's been a massive restructing.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Constant changing too more. I mean, you probably had one
of the biggest shocks though of all, you know, Briley
Group Corporate takeover merchants. They came in and just took
the whole thing over and restructured it overnight.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Right. But in fairness to the BRIDI group, you know,
I was one of the chosen people who they really
trained and it's really it really helped me. I mean,
Bryce Hancocks was an interesting guy. You know. He used
to go in and say, it's very easy to take
over companies today, and you just go in and all
the directors are asleep in the corner and just take them,
you know what I mean. It was sort of an
I spent many times having a chat to him on
(11:17):
the private Briley plane at the airport, which was quite
a big thing because you know, when you were sort
of a minion in the in the corporate to be
invited on the thing. And really they were taking over companies,
looking at mergers and taking over at that time, and
if you looked at history, it was an incredible amount
of mergers and things they took over. And so when
they really looked at you know, it was a difficult
(11:38):
job when I was given the job of the Weekly
because basically the Weekly had been the cash cow for
the ordul start that the evening newspapers were dying dying
around the world as well, and it had been a
long time, and the weekly was really the cash cow
that they used to drag the money from because it
was an advertising cow. But then of course suddenly everything changed.
(11:59):
There was you know, Roger brought out the Metro, There
was a whole lot of magazines coming out. There was
glossy paper. We were on newsprint. Can you believe half
the advertisements of three Dimensional as they were badly printed.
And so I was given that job to restructure it,
which is quite difficult.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
So you're right in the thick of it. But then
at some point, and this might be the best thing
that ever happened in your career, you get made redundant.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Well, I think the man who fired me have often
said that, he said, I saw the vision.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
All right, he says that now, which is probably feel like.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Rubbish. Yeah, it was a good thing. It's sometimes sometimes
in life, you know, we we have periods of our
life where we go through in business looking at business
deals and reflecting on business deals you've done, and what
you should have done and what you shouldn't have done,
and things like that, and it's really interesting, you know,
I think that and the time, it just probably gave
me a coal shower, as I call it. It was
(12:58):
a long coal shower.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Easy. Yeah, it's a big, big choice you have to
make though at that stage of life, to get made redundant.
You know, you could go and see the recruitment people
and find another corporate job, but you decided to back
yourself and start your own business. Can you tell me
a little bit about the thinking behind that and what
sort of gave you the confidence to have a go?
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Well, I thought of you know, it really comes back
to this some ip and owning everything I own now
and what you have is that I just decided that
no bastard would ever walk me off the place, no
bustard whatever. And it excuse me swearing, but would never
take me off the place. But you know, I'd spend
twenty one years building up companies. I'd open the American market.
I pioneered the development of education into the American market.
(13:40):
There's a huge there was a huge opportunity of huge
things that I did, and I thought, you know, they
don't appreciate and really a lot of job offers came
in from marketing manager or you know, I could do
that a production manager, marketing manager, et cetera, et cetera,
and you know, to pay the wages, the first wages.
I work for Uncle Rupert, you know, I mean Uncle
Rupert's always available. Probably well I'm probably not now he's
(14:03):
ninety three or something. But what I'm saying is that
I worked for I worked for Rupert the Murdoch Group,
you know, developing a strategy as well, just for a while,
because that paid the wages. You know, you've got to
have cash to pay wages for the couple of stuff
that I bought with me.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
But you could see potential for this line of educational publishing,
I guess, even though you know in New Zealand you've
got the school journals and it's a bit more locked
up here. But you could see that there was a
role for the private sector in that.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Well, all the contacts i'd made before came to me.
The world came to me literally, I mean literally, the
world just phoned me and said and it was only phone,
of course, we were just the Internet was just hadn't
even been developed totally. But of course see you know
fax machines or in operation, that was all and you know,
they phoned and said what are you going to do?
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah, and you already had you must have already had
good contacts with I had with the children right children's
writers and people who.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I had the contacts, and all the writers and all
the people came to me. But you know, the company
then tried you to destroy me. On New Year's Eve,
they on Christmas Eve, they delivered a thing you know
that you can't publish. You know, I didn't have a
clause in any contract or anything. In those days, you
didn't have contracts that said you know, you can't do
this or you can't do that, you know that sort
(15:15):
of thing. And they came at me and said that
you know, you can't publish books. Well, I thought that
was ridiculous. So I set up what we call the
subterfuge of a two mirror way, you know, which I
think is good for business. Really, you have a suburban
lawyer and then you have the top guy in town recording,
and they don't know because they think it's a suburban
(15:36):
lawyer writing the letters when you're fighting, and it was
pretty pretty scary. I mean, at that time they were
about an eighty million dollar organization totally I'm talking about
with everything you know you're fighting them, you know, from
the bench from a picture.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
But they hadn't put it out of contract that they had.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Basically, they never had any contract. They never had lead
to stand on. But we actually proved a case that
you know, it was an American case, interesting enough, that
was proved that refrigerator is a refrigerator. It looks a
shape of refrigerator. A book is a book, and no
one can copyright the actual shape that they can cooperate
in an unusual shape, but the normal rectangular shape. All
(16:13):
the thing was I had actually developed that anyway with children.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Well that's right, you'd brought that style yourself.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Rubbish, right, so anyway, but never mind. And they also
contacted all the people I hadn't dealt with and told them,
you know, they wouldn't deal with them a probably, And
all the people write back to me and said, what
a load of rubbish, which telling me to get lost.
So that's good.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Look, you know, coming through the publishing side, I know
you've got good writers and everything involved, but is there
a sense that you have a sort of the idea
that you've got to feel for what kids would like
and that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Feeling? Yeah, where do you think that comes from from yourself,
for that's right, and that's sort of a it's a
gut feeling of what works. And now, of course, after
forty years of working the markets, I have a gut
feeling I know what actually works in different markets and
and what actually can develop in a market working very
close with distributors on the ground and now case I
(17:03):
have a company in my own company in Australia, but
distributors on the ground and people who are developing content
and developing curriculum. I only wish that you know, New
Zealand wouldn't get to really nervous about me. I think,
you know, Ministry of Education is always nervous about me
because they always think I'm taking over or something which
is rubbish.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Well, there is a lot of I mean, the way
the systems run here, it's quite different compared to America,
for example.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Compeople with Australia compared with everywhere in the world except
Russia and Cuba. I think, I think you know, it's
the same. But it's quite sad really because you know,
we're a very small country and all I dream of
is that we all should work together to achieve, particularly
the output for Mara and Pacific Onland children. We can't
actually allow all of these children not to learn to read,
and we need help from everybody, and we need to
(17:50):
sit down. And it doesn't you know, just because I'm
a commercial organization, I say, I don't see. You know,
I give a lot of voluntary time and I give
a lot of things away as well. But you know,
what's the hand up? Hang up? But there seems to
still be a hang up.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yeah, yeah, that's tough, I guess, you know, because it's understanding,
Like really, to get kids to read, they have to
want to something is to appeal with the content and
the book or whatever they've got on screen. It's got
to be something.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
And you've got to move with the times too, you know,
you've got to modernize, you've got to learn a new
generation of kids coming through different kids. We learn a lot.
And that's the project I'm working on at the moment.
It's a really interesting project.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Can you talk about it or yeah, sure, sure.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
You know, I want to. I'm really really interested in
the power of the gaming industry. I think gaming is
a really interesting thing. It seems to be occupying a
lot of people, children and a lot of effort. So
what my dream is to have basically really good educational games,
(18:51):
not just educational games that will deliver not just something
about a giraffe running around the letter G on the
screen or something not like that, not like a sysame
streets stream. It's fine, but it's a fun thing, you know,
with children running around, and even ABC mouse, you know,
a Apple is the same sort of thing. What I'm
doing is I want to create something that will be deliverable.
In other words, that every child, particularly children who have difficulty,
(19:14):
particularly children who are dyslexic. Imagine if we can use
the gaming for the gaming magic and we can marry
that with solid educational And that's what I'm working on
at the moment with TL Education. And they're about a
four point four billion. I love to say those numbers.
It's like Fonterra, isn't it. But you know, they partner
(19:35):
with me and we're working and they see the dream too,
and they are gaming a top gaming company in the
world actually, and so I'm working with them on That's
what I was doing in China a couple of weeks ago.
So I don't know whether I'll pull it off, but
who knows.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
That's where to go. I mean, it's obviously if you
can get kids. It's that thing of passing the next level.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
If you can get the most the bag of a car.
You know, you kids say are we there yet? Are
we there yet? They can be using them bof phone
and learning to read at the same time. How's that
thinking out looking out the window? You know what kids
are like? Are we there yet? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (20:13):
I want to come back to some bigger thoughts about
fixing some aspects of New Zealand and things. But just
we've got a few we have a few quick fire
questions that we like to run through, and one of
them is what the poorest you ever have been?
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Is?
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Do you think any stage in your life, you know,
what stage in your life would you have been?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
I think when you first marry you're always like that.
You know, you're paying your house off, you're getting the
bolt meat or something fitted in your secondhand fridge that
goes blank in your washing machine, washing machine breaks down,
you know, I think that, Yeah, we just live within
our means, but you know, and so it's a sort
of a tough time. It's always a tough time in
(20:50):
the sense that you see other people, you know, doing things,
and you know, painting houses. I was good at painting
houses because I'm left handed and I was born left hand.
I was basically left handed, but I had to eat
my right because in school they force you to left hand.
So I'm ambidexterous. So it's very handy, and you know,
I've got six foot each with my arms. It's very
handy when you're painting the outside of a house because
(21:11):
you can just switch your brush over and just keep
on painting. You know, I painted a lot of houses
as well.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Were you a good, good, good budgeter and all that
sort of stuff, or were you're a spender.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
When you have to live within your means. I always
believe that you have to live within your means. I
think that people can compromise, so you don't you don't
necessarily have to, you know, have to live extravagantly or anything.
I think that you know, well, I'm a good cook
as well, so probably that's probably helps.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah, sure. I mean the other question we have as
along those lines of what would be the most indulgent
purchase you've ever made, or what are the things that
you like to splash.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
I think the first was a sports car because I
wanted a fast so I like fast cars really. But
the trouble is a Lamborghini or for the problem is
they're too low to the ground. Now I can't climb
into those. I need something a bit higher. But you know,
I quite like Sabek she SAB's gone off the market now.
But they were quite fun. You know, they were sports cars,
and it was a sports car that I bought. And
(22:09):
other things emeralds, beautiful pearls that emeralds that took six
months to find in South America. You know, there's a
few indulgent things that I have done, well, a few
naughty things. There are points of racehorses and racehorses. That's
one of my favors.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
I was talking to Rod Jerke as well, and he
couldn't think of anything, and then he said, oh, and
the race horses, because obviously they cost a bit of
money and a lot of and it's it's anyone who's
got the moys is It is a bit of a
money trap. While we're on the money topic, I asked
that author Emily Perkins about this. Do you have a
(22:47):
favorite book or any any favorite sort of writers or
advice and things on money? But you know that you
would you would look to or that you that influenced
you necessarily.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
On money, my favorite books at Water bog his zimbiographies.
I'm always fascinated how somebody has become what they've done,
so there's life they do in life, and how they
achieve things and everything else. On money, I'm always interested
in new developments, particularly my husband and I have a
large portfolio. We invest in things like mainly in the
(23:22):
medical field and the new development of cancer drugs and
other things, particularly the American market. I'm very fond of
the American market, investing in that because it does give
you a good return. And also we look at I'm
really interested obviously in AI now and what's happening with
AI and the development of AI as well. But in
the medical field there's a lot of new advances which
(23:44):
are fantastic because we are on the verge of discovery
of many things and they are fantastic. You can and
also minerals as well. I love minerals. Actually I love minerals.
I love Old Shane and digging up the ground with
his minerals or whatever he's going to do. But I'm
not sure there's two billion dollars worth of gold in
the South Island all.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Dollars century, didn't they But yeah, so I guess you're
investing in areas where you actually find some interest. You know,
there's something interesting.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Well, it's sort of interesting because you know, you can
buy shares at a few cents and they can become you know.
But you know, I'm one one of the original investors
in Apple, for example, and when we've bought the first
Apple for five dollars, the sharebroker who remained nameless in
Auckland said, what are you buying those four? You're not
going to do anything with Apple? Right? You know? Well
famous last words, isn't it. We're a large shareholder and Apple,
(24:36):
but you know, and of course it never paid a
dividend for a long time. It's not the dividend we're
looking at. It's mainly the growth of the of the
share portfolio. In the sense when you're looking at an
investment portfolio, you've really got to look at you know,
unless you're trading. If you're trading shares, it's different. But
if you're looking at the longer term, so medical shares,
mineral shares, and also technology shares.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Yeah, the things I like to ask in it because
you know, obviously you've done well and the money. You know,
you keep earning money and investing in things. But is it,
you know, what drives you?
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Is it the money so much? Or is there to
buy product of sort of success and other goals.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
It's a challenge of the hunt. Really, it's a challenge
of the hunt. I think that, you know, I like
to think I'm developing a new product that will benefit
a lot of people. None of my product is very ethical,
and I feel it's ethical as well. And I also
help a lot of people as well. But I think that,
you know, there's nothing wrong with making money out of
helping people. People have this thing about you know, what's
(25:35):
wrong with you know. I mean, you've got to help,
but you've got to put something back into the community
as well. And I do that through my through my
association and my things that I'm associated with, my charities
and things. But I think also it's the challenge of
the hunt. Really, it's the fun where you pitch yourself
against the giants. And if you think about the major
(25:56):
publishing houses of the world have all now been purchased
by equity. The equity people are really interested in education,
they love education. The reason they love it is because
under the if we tomorrow morning had a recession, the
two things that the government never cuts out, apart from
crime and punishment or something they can't the health and education.
(26:17):
They are the two things that they fund. They might miss,
you know, you might have to go put up with
old potholes for about another two months or something, do
you know what I mean? But health and education. And
even looking at the budget this year, if you looked
at the budget, and you looked at the budget in Australia,
you looked at the budget, you know, even if we'll
have a new president hopew I don't know whether we
will have old presidents in America, one of the budgets,
(26:39):
the budgets, even though the Americans say something different this morning,
the budgets will still say fairly static in education and
education is a key factor that most countries invest in
quite heavily. Governments so and they also pay their bills,
which is quite a big thing too. You know, like
if you looked at if you looked at some of
the corporates who have earned New Zealand, particularly at the moment,
(27:00):
or any corporates who have suffered some equity problems. You
look at the ratio of how many days are waiting
for payments, you understand, well, you don't have that in
education because governments pay bills and so you know, unless
the government go maybe France will go to the wall.
But what I'm saying is that you know currently, that's
(27:21):
why the equity guys it's a good return, and it's
in some ways it's a safe thing, you know, like
it's some in some ways if you looked at a portfolio.
You know, I often think of a board of directors
looking at a portfolio and thinking what are we going
to invest in next? And you know when people say
it's education, you know, oh my grandchildren, Oh very good.
You know, people feel good about education where they don't
(27:42):
feel good about probably products that may be some new
thing that someone's developing. So I think it's a safe bet.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Yeah, it must have made I mean, you sold the
US business years ago.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Only the rights to write, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
The right, but you know you must have had it
must be attractive to other equity groups. You do you
have to say offend.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
It's sort of as I don't really find people because
most people don't know what I do. I don't think
I think, I think it's the crazy lady who should
be in a retirement release something they don't know what
to do. But yeah, it's just the huge amount of
assets we have, you know, the property in publishing houses.
It's not really it's not really the revenue that you're
earning today. It's really the backlist and what you what
(28:23):
you ownly the value and that's a huge value because
you can You've seen that with lots of MGM, Ted
Turner buying all the pacts of the film. You've seen
that at many times if you looked at if you
looked at equity, you look at what the backlist can create.
So therefore, in the sense of when you look at it,
you can repackage it, you can redesign it. We're repackaging
(28:46):
something for China at the moment there was published thirty
six years ago. You so it never loses its ability
to be able to generate more income without a huge investment.
So in other words, if you have a list of
product and you can repackage that product for a minimum cost,
you don't have to reinvent the wheel. And now with
(29:07):
digital and now the new developments were digital and the
new things there's new opportunities.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Yeah, you've never felt like, you know, cashing out and
stepping back.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
But if I feel but you know, I've got a
lot of champagne, so I don't have to worry too much.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
I guess that's the question.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Is I enjoin what they're doing? Yeah, I'm enjoying what
I'm doing. I think sometimes you get a bit tired.
And my husband's in his mid eighties. Now you get
a bit tired. But really, you know, I think that
what do you need? You know, I don't sort of need.
I don't need some interviewer to go on and have
famous houses of New Zealand three thousand bedrooms or something.
(29:43):
You know, I'm not really you know, I've got a
lovely apartment in New York. I've got an apartment in London.
I've got lots of race horses. I wish they'd win.
But you know, what else do you need? You can
only eat so much in a day anyway, and I
work with wonderful friends around the world.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Sure. Just to finish up on a couple of bigger questions,
one of them is when you look back at it
and you touched on it earlier, your background not a
lot of money, you know, and really real humble beginnings.
What do you think it is that makes the big
difference in terms of success, in terms of why some
people get stuck in a poverty trap and some people
(30:17):
get out and escape. Is this something that you think
is a sort of a defining characteristic.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
I think resilience. You know, people have tried to eliminate me,
people have tried to lock me up almost you just
have to keep going. You know, it's pretty hard sometimes
you do. I think if you learn as a child
that you know, basically you learn sort of solid values,
and I think you have to learn values that you know,
(30:44):
you don't go through life cheating people. You look at
things that are responsible in the way you develop your property,
the way I develop because you know, one of the
difficulties is that I suppose if I talked about a difficulty,
is it all of my staff have been with me
so long? I mean, you know, who's got an art
director fifty years celebrated fifty years the other day. My
(31:04):
secretary is forty eight years. I mean we're talking about
people my time company. Wow, of all these people, of course,
and you know, so maybe it'll have to be the
Sunshine retirement village. Maybe I'll take y Ryman on at
their own job.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I don't know if you've ever thought
about politics, But one question I'd like to ask really
is if we could make your prime Minister for the
day and give you a chance to change some policy.
Would there be a big policy or a big change
you'd make to try and solve some of the social
inequality problems that are out there. What would be the
number one for you?
Speaker 2 (31:36):
I need to find it looking at a practical way
and take one example. You know, we talk about children
not going to school, which is tragic at the moment,
and I worked a lot in Northland on some charity
projects over the last five years. It's no use just
sending a notice to people. I'm going to find you
if you don't bring your child to school. You know,
I would tend to really really work with the EWE,
(31:58):
and I think in this country we need to work
together to solve the issue. We don't need to have
you know I'm going to do this and you're going
to do that, do you know? I mean really, at
the end of the day, if we work together to
solve the issue, I believe we could come up with
a solution, and a solution maybe is And I've looked
at this Northern project quite a lot. You know, what
(32:18):
brings the kids to school? You know, maybe we need
a minibus to pick these kids up from school, but
we do need we do need wonderful Mari people to
go to those families. If it's a Mari family or
if it's a European family, we can work with Europeans
to go to those and to find really what the
issues are and really work with those children and really
make sure those kids come to school. Once we get
(32:39):
them to school, we're fine, you know, we can do
something with them. But it really just stresses me to
have children at even an Odho college. You know, fifteen
sixteen year old boys who can't read. This is terrible,
This is absolutely terrible. What are they going to do?
What do you do with a nine year old ram
Raider or ten year old shelter ram rais What you
do with that? That is terrible? You know, it's not
(33:01):
just it's a social issue as well that we have
to look at and we can't just leave it to
everyone else. We've actually got to say, how is that
I know that I've tried to work and wrote a
room with the Murray people. I know sometimes they say,
you know this parkiher Australian. Helen Clark used to say,
she's an Australian. We can put up with her. She
brags too much. But you know what I'm saying. I
work with Hellen a lot. But you know, I think
that we need to look at these solutions. And it's
(33:24):
not easy. By the way, this is not easy. But
you can't just make jargon. You know. I hate jargon,
you know, I just I just need to say. It's
like people contact me and say we're doing a deep
dive and I say, oh, I hope you're giving the
snork will be it? We tend to have all these
jargon things. What actually do they mean? I mean, what
does it mean? You know? How are you going to
svolve a particular problem? A lot of these problems are
(33:47):
quite simple to solve, but and they ask are supposed
complex from a family point of view. But we do
need to look you know. I felt so sad yesterday
last night. I felt really sad. Our boots to the
office today reading about how many families have to turn
electricity off. Electricity that was a really really amazing article
(34:09):
in the Herald and I read it last night and
I felt so sad. Here we are as a nation
where we have to have children to go to a
swimming complex so they can have a hot shower, and
some families are doing without power for like three weeks
or something. You know, that's just not good enough? Is it?
In a country like ours? That's not good enough? And
that's not just a matter of money. That's a matter
(34:31):
of looking at the issues are and saying how we're
going to solve it.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Yeah, absolutely, well, look, just finally when the I know
we touched on it earlier, but what's on the immediate
horizon for the publishing group?
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Okay, well, we're working on obviously just working on the
famous you know, decodable readers, you know, which we have
to godable readers which children can decode. And looking at
the way how we teach and structured literacy, the way
we teach in that way, and we'd develop that with
professors and other people around the world. Develop we've got
the best structured literacy program. People haven't would it? They
(35:02):
need to buy it now anyway, getting a commercial but
that the situation is it delivers an outcome and also
looking at really my dream will marry education and gaming
together to create one of the great games for all
children of the world who are struggling with reading. Can
you imagine every four and five year old and six
(35:24):
year old and that'll probably be a wonderful footprint. Will
I achieve it? I'm not sure. The third partner is
out there, the third partner of Some people are interested,
but the big guys have said, you'll never achieve it, Wendy,
because nobody that motivates me more than anything. No one
has ever done this in the world before, so you
won't do it right. So actually that motivates me more
when people say that. And also working with China as
(35:47):
well in some of the projects I'm working. I love
the Chinese and the Asian market is fantastic.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Well, it sounds like there's no slowing down. Thank you
very much for talking to us. Cheers, Wendy Pie. Thank
you thanks for listening to this episode of Money. If
you want to get in touch, drop me a line
at Liam dot Dan at ZIBM dot co dot NZID
and you can read more from me at inzidherld dot
co dot MZID. Thanks to my producer Ethan Sills and
(36:14):
sound engineer Liann McDonald follow Money Talks on iHeartRadio or
wherever you get your podcasts, with new episodes available every Thursday.
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