How do we turn New Zealand into a nation of savers? Milford CEO Blair Turnbull talks to Ryan Bridge about Milford’s plans to help Kiwis save more, while touching on the reasons for Milford’s recent success and sharing his vision for the company he has headed since March this year.
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Bridge talks Business: 30 September 2025
Episode Transcript
Ryan Bridge
Kia ora and welcome to Episode 50 of Bridge talks Business with Milford. We’re celebrating our 50th episode! Yay! Happy Birthday! I know that many of our listeners are with Milford, and I know how important it is when you’re planning for your future, to know who you’re investing with, who you’re trusting. And today, we’re meeting the man in the driver’s seat here at Milford.
Blair Turnbull is Chief Executive of this multi-award winning, and now top five KiwiSaver, asset management firm. And he’s in the hot seat today. First here’s your top five business bits.
1. US economic data was strong across the board last week. Quarter two GDP was revised up to an annual rate of 3.8%. Primarily this is driven by strong consumer spending. Personal spending data was up in August, again. Further proof that, like Taylor Swift, they’re just shaking off those tariffs.
2. In Europe the PMIs edged higher. This was driven by strong services sector growth in Germany, while manufacturing was softer in most European countries – a sign the European goods sector is feeling those tariffs.
3. In New Zealand, consumer confidence increased marginally in September, albeit subdued overall.
4. There was little reaction from fixed income markets to the new Reserve Bank Governor, Dr Anna Breman, who has announced the next two OCR decisions fall inside Hawkesby’s reign.
5. This week, the Reserve Bank of Australia is expected to keep interest rates on hold at its meeting. Focus will be firmly on the risk of a US government shutdown, with Senate due to vote again on a bill to avoid it happening this week.
So, today’s episode is all about Milford, and we’re speaking to the Chief Executive, Blair Turnbull, who’s on the show. Just a reminder, this segment is informational only and should not be considered financial advice. Blair, welcome to the show.
Blair Turnbull
Lovely to be here, Ryan. Thank you.
Ryan Bridge
Great to have you here. Now, is this a Milford coloured tie that you’re wearing?
Blair Turnbull
This is a Milford coloured orange. One of our key values is embrace the difference – and this is the orange that is associated with Milford, yes.
Ryan Bridge
You’ve nailed that this morning.
Blair Turnbull
Thank you.
Ryan Bridge
So, let’s start with some of the big issues, right. Let’s dive right into it – some of the big macro issues facing the country, which Milford is quite heavily involved with – productivity and savings. Savings is a big problem – would you call it for New Zealand? We don’t do enough of it?
Blair Turnbull
Totally agree Ryan, look, there are two big issues for us as we see it. We are ageing, and that is inevitable – however, a savings shortfall doesn’t have to be. And as a country, if you look at the OECD list of 35 odd countries, unfortunately New Zealand is right at the bottom of that list as a nation of savers, and we do struggle with it.
We’re very traditional. We invest in our home and the like, and we love our homes. It’s wonderful to have a beautiful home, but we do need to learn, I think, the art of a diversified portfolio and actually really starting to become a nation of savers. Interestingly enough, and it was at a recent symposium where Sir Ian Taylor was presenting, he also showed a list of productivity for OECD countries.
And not surprisingly, at the top of that list was Denmark and Sweden and Singapore and Ireland, countries about the same size as ours. Also traditionally very strong in agriculture. They were at the top of the productivity list. At the bottom or towards the bottom was New Zealand. And I do think there is a link between productivity and savings. And when we have a nation of savers, that actually helps not just clients and communities, but businesses and also the economy as a whole.
Ryan Bridge
Explain that link to us. You know, you look at Australia for example, they save a hell of a lot more than we do. They’ve had compulsory savings schemes for a lot longer. And the rate is a lot higher there, but also their productivity is far greater than ours. What is the link between savings, investment and productivity?
Blair Turnbull
Yeah, that’s a really good question. So, I think at the end of that is, a country of savers are diversified. Yes, they save in their homes etcetera, but they also save in assets that are listed and also private assets. And I think it’s that balance, that diversification, that is strong. Diversity is resilience. And that’s a really good thing.
So, when you have a country that does actually have a broader investment focus, you invest in businesses, small businesses, large businesses, you invest in infrastructure. And more recently there has been a growing momentum around the need for investing longer term. That’s bipartisan support required for that from the government. But equally, we do want to see more listed infrastructure on the NZX and the like. And KiwiSaver in that regard can play a really important role.
Ryan Bridge
And KiwiSaver, I think, has sort of changed the game for Kiwis in terms of how they think about investing, moving away from that property to realising there’s a whole other world out there. Do you do you see that change? Has Milford seen that change in mindset from Kiwis?
Blair Turnbull
Yeah I think there has been a big mindset change – we’ve crossed that Rubicon and seen the value now of saving through KiwiSaver, although I would watch out about that. It’s not a panacea for everything. It can’t solve all of our problems, but let’s go to the heart of KiwiSaver. If we look around the world where we see nations of savers, we know from research from those countries, that when your savings amount gets about the size of your one year annual salary, you start to look at it more. You start to realise, oh, that’s quite exciting. And we’re getting to that level now. We’re getting to that level where people have $40, $50, $60,000 in their KiwiSaver and they can start to see the benefits of compounding earnings. And that is the beauty of savings and savings for the medium to longer term. You get the benefit of those compounding earnings and you can see your balance grow.
And it’s nice. We all like watching our money grow, but I think that’s the good thing about KiwiSaver. I think the likes of the FMA have helped us with transparency as an industry and, you know, all of the KiwiSaver players are really focused on sharing where your balances are online, on giving you really nice, easy tools to work with.
And that can help reinforce savings habits. At the end of the day, we do realise saving is not always easy. There’s always something over there that’s nice and shiny that you can invest in or buy, but having a savings habit and putting your savings away over time, you don’t realise you’re missing it. And you do see the balances growing, which has lots of positive enforcement. And that’s where the benefits of KiwiSaver are shining through.
Ryan Bridge
And more and more Kiwis are checking those balances through Milford because they are customers. Clients of Milford’s. Milford has grown rapidly. It’s sort of taken off. What are you putting its success down to?
Blair Turnbull
I think there’s three reasons driving that success, Ryan. I think the first one is an absolute focus on investment performance and medium to long term investment performance. We have a wonderful, talented team, that have shown over the medium to long term that the active investment philosophy that we adopt here at Milford can be enormously positive. And we’ll continue to invest in those talents and the technology and the data that sits behind that.
I think the second key point that’s driven Milford’s success is an absolute focus around client experience. And whether that be through personalised financial advice, through one of our many wonderful teams around the country, or whether it’s online and when you’re checking in to see your KiwiSaver balance or investment funds balance, and having that real absolute focus on client experience is critical.
I think the third one that makes Milford a little bit different in the support of that growth, is the fact that we are 100% Kiwi owned and we are the majority employee owned. And I think at the heart of that, that sort of tells a story about if our clients are successful, we are successful. And when we look at investments in savings, it isn’t just a transaction, it’s a partnership. Because again, if our clients are successful, we’re successful and that propels us forward.
Ryan Bridge
It’s a skin in the game type situation, isn’t it? What about the future in terms of investments? Where is Milford looking? What are some maybe new areas you might be looking to invest? Or is the current model working so well, why would you change? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Blair Turnbull
I think there’s a lot to be said on that last point. You know, we are very, very focused on what we do. It’s interesting to look at options over there or options over there, but we’re ruthlessly focused on what we do as Milford Asset Management. We will continue to invest in our people – our very, very talented investment team and the technology that helps them make really good medium to long term investment decisions.
So we will continue to invest in people, technology, data. Data is so crucial that supports the entire business. Increasingly alongside digitisation. But also, you know, we’re starting to learn about things like AI. So, you know, AI can hallucinate. It can send you in wrong directions. But that said, it is a critical part of a success story, I believe in the future. And so we are starting to get on that journey. We’re being cautious about it. But we’re understanding how it can help us make better decisions right across the business.
Ryan Bridge
I want to talk about you a little bit Blair. You were 20 years abroad. You were Chief Executive at Tower here in New Zealand, but you were in Asia. I understand you were also in the UK. Tell us about yourself, your background.
Blair Turnbull
Well, look, I’m a scrawny kid from Southland. There’s nothing particularly special about me. I’m off a farm, fourth generation farm in Southland. So, look, there’s nothing special about me. But, you know, I have always been encouraged, through my family, to get out there and be curious. And I think curiosity is great. There’s an old proverb that says curiosity killed the cat, but actually, no one remembers the second part of that story. It’s satisfaction that brought it back. And it’s the whole idea that actually curiosity is good for you. Maybe that’s why cats have nine lives, but it’s that curiosity is good. And as a young kid from Southland, I was keen to go abroad. I was lucky enough to meet a wonderful partner who shared that interest.
And yeah, we had 12 years in Asia. I have three teenage boys who were born in Asia and then who grew up in the UK. And I guess a part of that is we’re all a product of our experiences. And I think the experience of having worked in four different continents around the world has been wonderful for me.
It’s opened my eyes. I’ve made loads of mistakes, but I’ve also had lots and lots of learnings that I feel very lucky and privileged now to be able to bring that back to New Zealand. We came back during the Covid period for family reasons and we’ve absolutely loved being back here. I’m so excited about being part of this Milford team.
When I returned to New Zealand, one of the first things that I did was open a Milford account, a KiwiSaver with Milford. And it’s done very, very well, I’m pleased to say. And I’ve just always loved the way that the experience has worked, in terms of Milford and also the absolute ruthless focus on medium to long term investment performance.
I also knew the Chair from 25 years ago. I worked with Anthony and he was one of the original founders. I know the values that Anthony has, and I can see that shining through in Milford.
Ryan Bridge
Given your experience overseas, I think a lot of Kiwis want to know from a corporate perspective how New Zealand rates internationally. We’d like to think we punch above our weight, that we can do anything. Can we be this amazing capital in the South Pacific that’s a financial hub? All these things that we kind of want, and the politicians talk about it being.
Blair Turnbull
Oh, absolutely, we can be. And if we look at those productivity charts and you look at Demark, the Scandinavian countries, Ireland – the turnaround that Ireland had is phenomenal. And you look at countries like Singapore who just plan so far forward, and are phenomenal around their planning capability and they have minimal natural assets, they are 60km in diameter for goodness sake, yet they bat so well above themselves.
And I look back and if I look at New Zealand, we are phenomenal at growing grass and protein. And we have this wonderful agritech in terms of horticulture and the like. But we can be, and I’m sure we will be, much more than that. I think some of the learnings that I can take away from living offshore is that in this rapidly changing world, some of the real secret sauce you can have as a country is your ability to be curious, to learn, to adapt and to move at pace.
You don’t always have to be the first innovator, but there is a real competitive edge in being a fast follower. And I think at the moment we have enormous pride. And yes our netball team, our rugby team, and our sports prowess. And we’re great at the dairy side of things and livestock. I think we can be much more than that. We don’t have to be world best at 100 things. But I think we can be focused in on a few key industries. And a quick story if I can. I remember living in Singapore, and about 10 years ago they decided they were going to venture into gamification. They believed that that was going to be a big industry in the future, starting from nothing, really.
And they set a big area up out by the airport because they wanted easy access for those types of people in that industry to come in. They made fiscal changes to make it really attractive – to attract those industry people in gamification. And then they invested in talent. Ten years forward, they are the top three player in gamification in the world, which is a very big industry.
And I think we need to look at ourselves and who we are and the edge that we have. Yes we’re in the middle of the Pacific, but we are a competitive bunch. Yes, we’re humble. We have beautiful scenery. We can grow a lot of things here. We have to ask ourselves, where can we get that edge from? And then really back it. Really, really back it. I think being a nation of savers would help us because it gives us the capital and it gives us the momentum to invest in businesses, and that is a real competitive edge.
Ryan Bridge
Blair it’s been lovely chatting to you. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast today.
Blair Turnbull
Well my pleasure. Thank you very much, Ryan.
Ryan Bridge
And that was Blair Turnbull, who’s the Chief Executive at Milford. Don’t forget, you can, like, follow and subscribe this podcast wherever you like to listen. In the meantime, invest in yourselves.
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