PAUL MCBETH: Eroad and embracing the authentic

Paul McBeth is the editor of The Bottom Line and Curious News, and previously worked at BusinessDesk for 15 years.

Eroad’s annual meeting should have been a tense affair as New York’s Ampfield Management did that very hedge fund thing in agitating for rapid change to unlock suppressed value.

What we got instead was a relatable hour-and-a-half explanation of the fleet management software and hardware maker’s mission to sort out past missteps as it pares back those North American ambitions underpinning its 2014 initial public offering and the problematic 2021 acquisition of rival Coretex.

Executive chair John Scott – whose head was on the block in Ampfield’s flex – gave a refreshingly frank appraisal of the challenges facing Eroad in winning back the trust of its customers, and the opportunities it can latch on to in Australia and New Zealand while its relatively small American business battens down the hatches as US majors jostle for supremacy in their quest to win large enterprise customers at all costs – including profitability.

Ampfield’s attempt to unseat Scott and independent director Sara Gifford and install a troika of Constellation execs on to the board fell short, with managing member Emerson Moore accepting ahead of the meeting that he hadn’t won over major institutional investors – Regal Funds, Australian Ethical Investment and the Accident Compensation Corp – who wanted to give Scott and the board more time to prove themselves.

That admission meant the small media contingent at the meeting wasn’t going to be treated to a cringe-inducing exercise of corporate jousting that only those with no skin in the game can enjoy without wincing.

He sees the silent hollow sky

For those of us who’ve dipped in and out of the telematics firm’s life as a public company over the past 12 years, the meeting was more akin to reading an independent adviser’s report on the state of the business and the wider industry – giving existing shareholders a better understanding of the issues a new management team is grappling with and hinting at potential moonshots without getting ahead of itself.

As Scott said, New Zealand and Australia are big enough to be forever businesses and are the core of Eroad’s future.

On reflection, the US moonshot probably dominated Eroad’s story for far too long.

Sure, the $40 million raised in the 2014 NZX listing was pitched as fuelling a staggered expansion in North America, starting from the base in Oregon before rolling out across the Northwest and beyond.

From the bottom of the world, the staggered expansion across America made sense given the fractured nature of the US market.

We’ll be the passenger

Observers from afar have lost count of the number of wide-eyed Kiwi businesses predicting they’ll crack the US in one fell swoop only to be confronted by the reality that the 50 states are very different beasts – US federal government diktat doesn't go as swiftly or as far as directives from the Beehive.

Similarly, growth in North America was the driving factor in the $177.2 million Coretex acquisition, as it brought a greater number of large enterprise customers in the refrigerated transport and construction sectors.

It seemed like a no-brainer, although as Grant Samuel warned at the time, big integrations are tricky and it can take a while for the benefits of rationalisation to work their way through – or a lack of them to show up – in the company’s accounts.

And with Coretex only predicted to be integrated into Eroad in the current financial year, it’s easy to understand why there’s a hint of utu in the air.

As shareholder Nick Scott put it – where’s the accountability from those who were in the hot seat?

See the city’s ripped backsides

The clean sweep of management might be a starting point, and the appointment of a new chief executive should be just around the corner. The board itself has a hint of new-car smell, with the level of continuity an active decision by directors.

After all, it probably wouldn’t do to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Sure, the Coretex acquisition obviously hasn’t panned out as hoped, but it did provide a big leg-up for Eroad across the Tasman.

Before the deal, Eroad had almost 2,900 installed units in Australia. That jumped to 14,100 once Coretex was bought and it’s almost 26,100 these days.

In fact, Australia’s growth was one of the highlights for the business in the March 2026 financial year, with revenue climbing 40% to $18.8 million.

How, how he rides

And to give John Scott credit, he understood the frustration and expected to face the heat next year if the company wasn’t back on the straight and narrow.

It turns out that candour might be good for business too.

At these sorts of events, it’s easy for company boards and management teams to be inwardly focused – after all, they’re essentially talking about themselves.

But one of the key messages that came through loud and clear at the annual meeting is that Eroad recognised it dropped the ball for its customers, who are now front and centre in the current overhaul.

That included hiring people to make sure larger customers who still need a human touch can get it more easily – it goes to show the push to automate everything with AI agents isn’t literally everything.

He looks through his window

Still, you can’t please everyone with veteran stirrer Stephen Mayne scathing in his assessment of the meeting, calling the separate presentations by management’s new blood filibustering and bemoaning the rephrasing of some of his questions.

Of course, two pairs of eyes can see entirely different things and what Mayne described as filibustering, New Zealand Shareholders’ Association chief Oliver Mander called a true insight into the inner workings of the business.

History will ultimately prove who’s right, but as an exercise in resetting expectations, it was hard to walk out of Eroad’s Albany headquarters after that annual meeting without a firmer grasp on the business.

Now comes the hard part of delivering.

Image from Stephen Gong on Unsplash.

Watch Paul McBeth and Oliver Mander discuss the Eroad AGM:

This column has been updated to make clear that US federal government orders don't go as swiftly or as far as Wellington's.