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Manawatu Knitting Mills: A management buy-out opportunity
Allan Cameron
Department of Management, Massey University, New Zealand
Richard Pech
Graduate School of management, La Trobe University, VIC
Abstract
‘In skating over thin ice, our safety lies in speed'.Ralph Waldo Emerson1803-82
In the past few decades, the New Zealand textile, clothing and footwear (TCF) sector has experienced enormous restructuring and has downsized by 90 percent as a result of a rapidly changing business landscape. Manawatu Knitting Mills (MKM) is one of the few survivors. It is the oldest knitting company in New Zealand, having been founded in Palmerston North in 1884. The radical economic reforms of the 1980s had a greater impact than the Great Depression of the 1930s. MKM had to contend with both industry turmoil and the fallout from the 1987 stock market crash. These events badly affected MKM's parent company, resulting in potentially debilitating financial problems. It was all a huge mess. MKM's management was forced to change their thinking on how the company should be structured and managed.
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