The New Zealand Growth Fund returned +0.04% in June, compared to its benchmark of +1.54%.

Vulcan Steel (-13%) announced a transition of its leadership team, with long time CEO Rhys Jones (in the role since 2011) to be replaced by current Chief Commercial Officer, Gavin Street, in January 2026. Gavin joined the Vulcan business in late 2024 with the view that his strong background in trade products distribution meant he had potential to be Rhys's successor. Since then, the Board has become confident that he can perform strongly in this role. Rhys will transition to become Chair of the Board, which means his market knowledge and strategic insights will be retained by the company, together with his focus on maintaining the company's successful culture.

Xero (-2%) announced the strategic acquisition of US payments business, Melio, for around US$2.5 billion, also raising A$2.05 billion to help fund the transaction. Melio is a fast-growing US platform that enables small and medium businesses to seamlessly pay their bills. This aligns with Xero’s key objectives, complementing its core accounting and payroll services in its most lucrative market. It will provide Xero added scale in the US market and open up new avenues to acquire and monetise customers. Melio has a direct offering to customers that can be embedded into the Xero offering, but furthermore its platform is also white-labelled through major players Fiserv, CapitalOne, and Shopify which may provide opportunities for their large customer bases. Management is confident that the combined business will see accelerated growth and can double in size over the next 3 years.