Waikato Innovation Park - a relationship based on trust and understanding

Monday 27 May, 2019

As the chief executive of Waikato Innovation Park, Stuart Gordon lives and breathes agritech, ICT and smart protein. It’s a sector experiencing rapid change and growth so it’s imperative, says Stuart, that his organisation is supported by those who understand the market, and the challenges and opportunities it presents.

“That’s where Tompkins Wake is invaluable in the service they provide,” Stuart said.

The relationship between Tompkins Wake and Waikato Innovation Park dates back to the early 2000s when Tompkins Wake assisted initially when the Park was seeking start-up funding. Stuart came on board in 2008 as a contractor the Park with NZ Trade & Enterprise; he was looking for alternative countries to sell the region’s agri tech into.

“Tompkins Wake helped forge those relationships in countries around the world… places like Colombia, Ecuador, and the Ukraine,” Stuart said.

In the 11 years since, Tompkins Wake has worked alongside Stuart through myriad changes including the sale of the Park’s property assets from Hamilton City Council to a new, private owner. Waikato Innovation Park and its subsidiary Food Waikato are still owned by Hamilton City Council and Callaghan Innovation.

“The interesting thing about that transaction was that we were navigating not only a regulatory environment, but a political one too. It was more complex than a usual transaction, particularly when it involved both central and local government,” said Tompkins Wake partner Phil Taylor.

As the client relationship manager, Phil is Stuart’s first point of call and often undertakes high level commercial negotiations alongside Stuart.

Most recently, the pair has worked together to realise a new spray dryer at the Ruakura site.

“As Food Waikato, we saw an opportunity to support the growth of the sheep milk industry in the Waikato … to get that better established,” Stuart said.

Food Waikato’s original spray dryer was at capacity and demand for value-added sheep milk products was increasing.

“We saw the opportunity to build a second, larger spray dryer so we looked at the strategy first,” Stuart said.

Unlike with the first spray dryer, with this one they would move to a private funding model.

“That’s where Tompkins Wake came into play. They helped us to establish what this would look like commercially and helped draw up a strategy around how we envisaged it would work and how we’d approach the market to raise capital.”

Construction of the dryer is underway and is set to open in January.

“This really is at the cutting edge in terms of value-added sheep milk products and the opportunities to grow in the Asia market are huge,” Phil said.

“It’s really exciting to be a part of this and to be working alongside an organisation that is proactive in meeting the increase in demand from the sheep milk industry.”

It’s Tompkins Wake’s depth and breadth of knowledge is what sets them apart, says Stuart.

“Their understanding of the intricacies of council ownership and local government legislation, their knowledge of food processing, construction, property, infrastructure, sophisticated commercial transactions, capital raising, IP... because they have such depth in terms of their skills and expertise, everything is truly seamless from our point of view,” Stuart said.

“Alongside Phil there is enough weight and skills that I can contact someone else in the team fairly quickly and get the answers that I need from something relatively simple through to more difficult issues.”

And the fact that Tompkins Wake is local suits Stuart and his team.

“Tompkins Wake aligns with our business; they see the bigger picture and they think like we do.”“Being here in Hamilton we have easy access to the team. We can be working across the table straight away, making things happen so much faster. For us, it’s not about price; it’s about the outcomes they produce and the exceptional service they provide.