Growth bought with other people’s money and lives
WasteCo Group Limited listed on the NZX in 2022 as a South Island waste management consolidator with an acquisition-heavy playbook. The pitch was familiar: buy fragmented operators, centralise, extract margin. For a while, the revenue line cooperated. Full-year results to March 2026 show revenue up 24.5% to $70.22 million. But the net loss widened to $12.35 million, up from $9.85 million the year before. Revenue is scaling. Losses are scaling faster.
The numbers alone would be unremarkable for an early-stage roll-up. What makes WasteCo different is that the financial deterioration ran alongside an operational one that cost two people their lives.
The deaths the board didn’t prevent
Lynda Marion Kelly, 62, died after a workplace accident at the Te Anau transfer station on 2 May 2025. WasteCo operated the site under contract to Southland District Council. A year later, WorkSafe formally charged WasteCo NZ Limited under the Health and Safety at Work Act, carrying a maximum penalty of $1.5 million.
Then in March 2026, Cromwell truck driver Paul Richard Cruse, 60, died in a single-vehicle crash on Cardrona Ski Field Road. WorkSafe opened a second investigation. Two fatalities at different sites, involving different types of incident, within ten months. That pattern points to something systemic, not isolated.
WorkSafe area manager Gary Lowther put it plainly: “Businesses and organisations must manage their risks, and when they do not we will hold them to account.”
A board that emptied itself
Three directors have departed WasteCo in 2026. Alternate director Rodney Malam resigned on 1 May, Shane Edmond also departed, and co-founder James Redmayne resigned with immediate effect in late May. Co-founders do not resign “with immediate effect” unless the relationship with the remaining board has broken down completely.
Compounding the problem, chair Roger Gower was abroad during WorkSafe’s fatality probe. Gower has been doubling as interim CEO since the previous chief executive relocated to Australia in mid-2025. The company is now being run by a single person serving two roles, under two WorkSafe investigations and a criminal charge, with three board seats vacant.
The NZX Corporate Governance Code is explicit that strong governance leads to lower cost of capital and higher valuations. The inverse is also true, and WasteCo is living proof.
The reset that came after the damage
In November 2025, Gower told investors the first half of FY26 represented “a decisive shift in WasteCo’s trajectory”, citing 43% revenue growth and a 102% increase in operating EBITDA. Buried in the same results were $810,000 for a health and safety reset and $554,000 for restructuring in just six months. Those line items told a different story from the headline numbers.
The safety spending was reactive, not preventive. Kelly was already dead. The $810,000 was the cost of catching up, not getting ahead. The company has since disclosed total safety reset spending of $1.7 million, but that figure arrived after two fatalities, not before them.
What councils and investors should be asking
WasteCo’s most valuable contract is a $40 million, nine-year deal with Ashburton District Council announced with its FY25 results in May 2025. That contract is now the anchor of a company facing criminal charges and widening losses. Council procurement teams across the South Island will be watching the court proceedings closely, and they should be. The Te Anau death occurred at a site WasteCo operated under contract to Southland District Council. Councils that outsource waste services carry their own duty-of-care obligations.
For investors, the arithmetic is unforgiving. A listed small-cap with a $12.35 million loss, a governance vacuum, two open regulatory investigations, and a criminal charge is not a straightforward recovery story. The company needs new directors, a permanent CEO, and a credible path to profitability, all while defending a prosecution.
WasteCo spent 2025 telling a growth story. The operational reality was deteriorating underneath it. The question now is whether anyone on the reconstituted board, whenever it materialises, will be willing to say that out loud before the next crisis forces them to.
Sources
- WasteCo Group Limited Reports Earnings Results for the Full Year Ended March 31, 2026 (2026-05-29)
- Charges laid after woman dies at Te Anau transfer station (2026-05-05)
- Te Anau accident investigation (NZX announcement) (2026-05-04)
- WorkSafe probes second WasteCo death after Cardrona truck crash (2026-05-12)
- Another WasteCo director bites the dust (2026-05-25)
- WasteCo crisis deepens as chair abroad during WorkSafe fatality probe (2026-05-21)
- WasteCo Group Limited Analysis – NZX half-year results (2025-11-28)
- NZX Corporate Governance Code (March 2026) (2026-03)
- WasteCo FY25 Annual Report release (NZX announcement) (2025-05-30)