It’s been an entertaining week of listening to Mike Hosking railing against Auckland Airport.

When he gets on a roll, the tsunami of verbiage is something to behold as Adrian Littlewood the CEO found out when he showed up to defend his company.  The trick with Mike is to start talking and never stop or else he’s in like a robber’s dog.

Now I don’t have too much beef with the airport but that might be because I rarely travel overseas. But it is fair to say that the most recent time I was at the airport I was amazed that the whole thing was in such a state of disrepair and it seems permanently in a state of reconstruction.

It smacks to me of a programme of renovation that was always too late and too little.

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Now the airport admits the extraordinary growth in tourist numbers has caught them a little short.  But they’re countering that with a $2 billion reconstruction that will sort them out for the next 30 years.  It is the largest private construction job in the country. They’re on track to get their act together.

But as Mike pointed out this morning this could have been avoided.  The airport company have been very dedicated to shareholder return, which includes the Auckland Councils near 30 per cent stake, who, by the way, has been very quiet on the whole affair.

Over the past decade, hundreds of millions of dollars have been paid to shareholders.  Including one year when the return totalled 102 per cent of profit. Now this is great news if you’re an investor but not if you’re maintaining your assets.  Of course the airport had budget for capex but it’s fair to assume they could have invested more earlier and they had the wherewithal to do it.

Now I compare that to the announcement from Mainfreight a day or two ago.  They had a great year and while they paid a return to shareholders they also rewarded one of their greatest stakeholders, their staff.  Out of their record profit they gave $21.7 million in bonuses to their employees.

This is a great investment and a sign of a company who understand that the success of a company is not just the profits they return to shareholders, but appropriate investment in all facets of their operation, including their people.

It’s always tempting as a CEO to go to the board and the shareholders and give them good news and figures.  But if you get it wrong and under invest then eventually the birds come home to roost. It’s a lesson for all businesses.