New owner of Mill-Tui, Dean Purves

Mills-Tui has a new hand at the tiller following Dean Purves‘s purchase of the iconic Rotorua company.

Dean has been in the transport industry for many years in finance, leasing and sales roles, originally starting his career as a diesel mechanic.

“I‘ve most recently been in truck leasing as general manager of heavy commercial at FleetPartners. I’ve also held senior management roles with TCL Isuzu and Manheim.

“I‘ve been in the transport industry for a long time and I‘d always wanted to buy a business. I‘d started thinking, if I did, what kind of business would interest me. Transport engineering was something that mixed with my experience quite well, so that‘s why I looked at Mills-Tui.”

It will be business as usual for the company‘s 20 staff, and the business name will be kept following settlement at the end of January. Dean will take on the role of managing director while his wife, Carey-Lee, will join the company in an administration role.

“At the moment the order book‘s pretty full, so it‘s business as usual while I get my feet under the desk and then we‘ll look at opportunities from there. We‘re actually on the hunt for a few more staff too, with what‘s in front of us.

“We‘ve got another trailer design coming out shortly, which will be ready in a month or two, and we‘ll release more details about that when it gets here.”

Previously based in Auckland, Dean and his family have relocated to Rotorua. Dean enjoys fishing, motor racing, rugby and cricket, and says he is looking forward to continuing those pursuits in his spare time.

“There is a huge amount of expertise and experience in this business. It has been on the same site for well over 30 years, so there‘s a lot of history that goes with it, and all of that expertise is being retained here.”

Mills-Tui specialises in designing and manufacturing a full range of heavy transport truck and trailer units, fire fighting and other emergency vehicles, hi-tech specialty vehicles, defence vehicles and modifying and refurbishing existing equipment. They are internationally recognised as being at the forefront of innovation, design and customer focus in this field.