My theory on this is that it all goes back to the late 1980's. NZ went hard into financial deregulation and had many "entrpreneurs" Brierley, hawkins among many others. post 1987 the whole economy collapsed from huge debts, corporate collapses. NZ went into many years of struggle with no real exit stratgey. the market was, to be frank, a joke with a few "no growth" comapnies.such as Fletcher Building Telecom NZ and Fisher and Paykel when it made fridges-even thogh they were good appliances. 

however, the NZD was very low for a long period (low cost) and NZ had an educated work force. there was a period when semi processed agriculture was potentually a growth area, apples, kiwifruit,  but the cycles proved too problematic. that led itself , over a long period of time, for the capital light, high education industries to grow as they had supply of talent and low cost. NZ had trained itself to run on an oily rag, no iron ore largesse!  

i often remember the terrible job NZ fund managers had during the 1990's (poor oppty) only to be replaced by a plethora of strong growth companeis over the last twenty years, XRO A2M FPH etc etc. that made their successors look like geniuses. all in the timing haha. thats my view for whats its worth

XRO, A2M, PPH, now ERD, SMP. How is it that these small cap companies coming over from NZ are so popular amongst investors (and ultimately so successful as businesses). Seems like an absurdly high hit rate (yes, i'm sure there are a couple of bad ones in there, but the success rate is nevertheless remarkable). Selection bias where only the exceptional NZ companies are in a position to seek dual-listing? Would love to hear any theories. Surely the Kiwi's aren't entrepeneurial geniuses?