“M10 corporate doesn’t run the local M10 store. However, others gave insights into how the co-operative works.

The parent company recorded a $67m loss, down on the previous year’s $1.8m profit, primarily due to one-off expenses from a major technology upgrade. When the Herald earlier this month reported on the state of the parent company’s accounts and its loss, due mainly to an IT overhaul and update, some readers were shocked by the deficit.

Mitre 10 in this country was established in June 1974, so is about to celebrate half a century of success next winter. The structure of this shy giant is a quietly brilliant story of co-operative power. What we do know is some of the bigger Mitre 10 stores employ more staff than even the biggest Pak’nSave supermarkets - those money-making machines that can generate more than $200 million in revenue a year and net their owners more than $10m annually. While most undoubtedly are profitable for their owner-operators, no one will shed any light on the actual financial figures for individual stores. What’s more difficult is establishing how much money the big Mega stores make. However, the information is publicly available, albeit hard to find. When told we would compile this list, spokesperson Lisa Wilson said: “We’re unable to share information about our membership for a power list story, unfortunately, but thank you for the opportunity.” Like most successful businesses, it doesn’t need to court the media or the limelight and is actually highly reticent to engage. Mitre 10, headed by chief executive Andrea Scown, isn’t a headline-hogger, despite its force and power. Yet those bosses who splash the orange and black colours throughout our cities and neighbourhoods so big-time get little publicity. The highly entrepreneurial Mitre 10 bosses are picking our barbecues, choosing this summer’s outdoor furniture for our backyards, bringing us the latest kitchen and bathroom trends and offering us hedge, flower, vegetable and herb plants to make our hearts sing. But who owns the 85 New Zealand Mitre 10 stores? Property editor Anne Gibson names those behind a chain of shops bigger in most places than the local supermarkets. It’s New Zealand’s most popular, prominent home improvement and garden retailer, a vast and deeply embedded national network expanding fast, demolishing smaller stores for larger ones and moving into new areas to beat Bunnings, which landed here in 2001. The new Silverdale store, with staff pictured all ready to go when it opened in August this year.

Landscape supply store murray