In November a Pledge Me appeal resulted in Ocho amassing $2million in new investment within two days. (The Otago Daily Times outlined on Wednesday how some of that money will be spent).
Ocho director Jim O’Malley said Dunedin Manufacturing Holdings (DMH), under whose banner the Ocho campaign was launched, would continue to look for further opportunities to kick-start manufacturing businesses in the city.
"I see us doing this again, probably in the not too distant future — hopefully in about six months."
Ocho had been a good trial run, where the company had received extra investment in a way it was comfortable with, Dr O’Malley said.
Many lessons had been learned from the exercise which would be applied to the next DMH undertaking, he said.
"The big one will be asking Pledge Me whether or not they want to do this again because it was a huge amount of paperwork compared to what they normally deal with — they don’t normally have 3500 shareholders to do verification with."
Dr O’Malley would not be drawn on what DMH’s next business venture might be.
"Manufacturing can go all the way from the simplest low-tech to the extreme high-tech.
"In terms of the model, one of the things we want to be able to achieve is that people who work for that company are paid a living wage, or higher, and therefore the product has to have a certain gross profit inherent in it so that we are able to pay those people."
DMH is an incorporated society set up during Dr O’Malley’s since-abandoned campaign to buy the Cadbury factory.
DMH’s function was now to support Dunedin business initiatives, and it would soon be contacting everyone who became an Ocho shareholder in the Pledge Me campaign to ask if they wanted to join the society, Dr O’Malley said.
"It has as its objective increasing manufacturing opportunities in Dunedin.
"As part of its constitution anybody who buys stock in a company that Dunedin Manufacturing Holdings helps to float becomes an automatic member of DMH for 10 years."
