INDUSTRY PEOPLE
A DRIVING FORCE
The Hooper Story
Matt Cobb is excited about the future, even amidst a
global pandemic; one that has severely impacted New
Zealand industry far and wide.
It’s an admirable trait, but essential right now in times
that are unpredictable.
Matt is an eternal optimist. Every day is a day to have
a win, whether it’s out helping a client with a tricky
scenario, or showcasing the wares of the company
across multiple platforms online.
At the moment, winning is not something a lot of
businesses feel they are achieving, and understandably
so.
With the global spread of Covid-19 in early 2020 and
its tentacled reach to our shores by February this year,
the outlook for businesses alone, let alone the potential
impact on the country’s health and health systems, is
still in the air, despite our Level 1 status.
When Matt and I talked in March though, his confidence
at that time in getting through any potential downturn
(or as it actually happened, complete halt) in trading
remained unfettered.
By then, there were whispers of lockdowns and financial
crises; it was doom and gloom and there wasn’t a lot to
be chipper about. Matt’s unfazed attitude was actually
pretty refreshing to see.
There’s a couple of reasons why that
confidence is still intact.
Matt works with a brand that has been
around (in New Zealand terms) since
Adam was a cowboy. Hooper Limited was
established in 1928, in a little shop on
Queen Street and since then has grown to
be a ‘household’ name in the agricultural
and civil industries.
It was M J Hooper, a renowned “tinkerer” all those years
ago who came up with a series of inventive farming
tools, some of which have made it into New Zealand
museums, such as a plough/disc spanner made of cast
steel, which now resides in the Jack Morgan Museum.
In essence, Hooper Civil, one of the arms of the Hooper
brand, is a company which now produces specialised
equipment, such as pile drivers and disc harrows,
basically anything you need to work unworkable land,
“Matt works with a brand
that has been around (in
New Zealand terms) since
Adam was a cowboy. Hooper
Limited was established in
1928, in a little shop on Queen
Street and since then has
grown to be a ‘household’
name in the agricultural and
civil industries.”
A pile driver for bridge construction.
that you can strap onto your Massey Ferguson. It initially
grew as a manufacturer and supplier of
disc harrows and seed drills and has grown
exponentially since.
While the agricultural side of the brand is
flourishing — after all, we are still a farming
nation — Matt is enthusiastic about bringing
the civil side more to the forefront of the
company, and that is where he intends to
take it next.
“Firstly, it’s a New Zealand-made brand,”
says Matt, “and people really trust that. They know that
the manufacture will be of a really high standard, and it’s
as if they know what they’re getting.”
“Hooper came up for sale in 2011 and was bought by
Fairbrother Industries, and then in May 2019 it was again
sold and Hooper Civil was bought by Farmgear Limited.
So now, Farmgear is the umbrella company for Hooper
Civil and there is a second tier company called Hooper
AG, owned by Mech Agriculture. I am the sales person
This is a monthly series on businesses in our industry. We profile one business per month to find out how our hard-working
business owners, employees and contractors manage to run these specialist businesses and what makes them tick in the
New Zealand trade business environment. These are the stories of our CAM people.
www.cammagazine.co.nz CAM July 2020 57