A New Zealand technology company that runs customer loyalty apps for global multinationals including McDonald's and Starbucks has joined pavlova, Russell Crowe and the flat white in being stolen away by Australia.
Task Group on Tuesday announced it planned to migrate its incorporation to Australia and delist from the NZX, after moving its primary listing to the Australian Securities Exchange last October.
It's the latest in a number of companies that have ditched the NZX for the ASX in recent years, most notably Xero in 2017.
Other NZ promising firms including breast cancer detection company Volpara Health, soft tissue repair company Aroa Biosurgery and biotech Neuren Pharmaceuticals never listed on the NZX at all.
Task Group CEO Dan Houden told AAP that while the company's senior leadership remained in New Zealand, "the move for us simplified our compliance, gets us into a bigger market, a bigger listing, and will help liquidity for us across our shareholder base".
The 200-person, $NZ200 million ($A185 million) company has offices in Auckland, Sydney's Northern Beaches, San Diego, Poland and Japan.
"So we really are a global business but we're moving our primary listing, and that's going to simplify and streamline a lot of our operations and cost profile," Mr Houden said.
Task Group also on Tuesday reported its best financial results ever, with a full-year profit of $NZ400,000, compared to a $NZ24.3m loss the previous year.
Revenue nearly doubled to $NZ64.9m, with adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of $NZ11.9m, compared to a $NZ12.9m loss in 2021/22.
The turnaround was in part due to a successfully renegotiated contract with McDonald's, which uses Task Group software to manage its customer engagement programs in dozens of countries.
Task Group clients in Australia include Starbucks, Guzman Y Gomez, Retail Food Group and Accor and CommBank stadiums.
Mr Houden said up next for Task Group was integrating payment features into its customer loyalty apps, so they can store value and serve as an alternative to Apple Pay and Google Pay.
"It'll obviously create a new revenue stream, but also provide our customers and prospects with an integrated solution that will have a lot more features and functions that traditional payment-only companies won't be able to offer."
