Fletcher Chair resigns but directors retain huge fees despite staggering loss
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- Date published:
4:34 pm, February 14th, 2018 - 123 comments
Categories: business, capitalism, economy, Economy, Financial markets, housing, kiwisaver -
Tags: building boom, fletcher building, shares
Sir Ralph Norris laughing all the way to the bank
Fletcher Building, as telegraphed by their share trading halt last week, today announced further dire losses from their Building and Interiors unit that sent their shares plunging another 12% to $6.87.
The company said it was suspending the shareholder interim dividend and was in breach of covenants to its banks and bond holders.
But it seems the company’s seven directors will keep most of their enormous fees.
Chairman Sir Ralph Norris announced he would fall on his sword, following the forced resignation of former CEO Mark Adamson in March when the company made the second announcement of problems at the Building unit.
At the third announcement in October, Norris apologised to shareholders, saying directors took responsibility and would therefore take a 20% cut in the $200,000+ directors’ fees with Norris’ $426,000 fee taking a similar trim.
Norris has acknowledged some personal responsibility for the problems by resigning. He has overseen the Building unit lose close to $1 billion in two years, but there was silence on whether the directors should take another haircut on fees. When contacted today, Norris refused to comment about the need for a further cut.
The latest announcement of further losses in the building unit has angered shareholders and analysts.
The losses are bad enough but Fletcher has seriously damaged its credibility by having four goes at getting this right. The fact that the board failed to get on top of this problem that was exposed over a year ago reveals their collective failure.
At the analysts briefing after today’s announcement, Citi Research Equities analyst Simon Thackray queried how it was that the company said in October that accounting firm KPMG had done a “comprehensive” review but then more losses had emerged.
“I’m trying to understand how KPMG were so emphatic in October,” he said.
Ironically, most of the losses — $410 million – have stemmed from the controversial Sky City Convention Centre, where the John Key-led National government traded off laxer gambling rules in exchange for getting the centre built. Questions were raised also about the openness of the tender process that Fletcher Building won.
The Building + Interiors division lost $292m in the June 30, 2017 year but a further $660m of losses are now projected in the current June, 2018 year.
Norris blamed grossly wrong quantity surveyor estimates, rising building costs and the flow of communication from management to the board as reasons for losses.
Fletcher’s banks, owed $1.3 billion, have agreed to an interim waiver on breached banking covenants, but you can be sure they will demand higher interest rates. Arrangements will be reviewed in June.
However, Fletcher may have more problems over another $1.13 billion owed to a US Private Placement syndicate. There are three tranches of this debt and over half of the lenders have to agree to the waiver of the breached covenants.
New Fletcher CEO Ross Taylor, who exuded smiles and confidence at a news conference despite accepting the ceo role hospital pass, gave all sorts of assurances that everything has hunkey dorey – no asset sales had been demanded by banks, no new capital was required and while debt lines were pretty fully drawn other than working capital, cash flow was okay.
He wasn’t so smiley about the million Fletcher shares he was forced to buy as part of getting the job and now under water.
Mark Lister, head of private wealth research at Craigs Investment Partners, said the Fletcher share price plunge could have been much greater if the company had planned a big capital raising to rectify its debt problems, as some in the market had suggested.
“It was a good result considering it could have been much worse than that if they had had to do a dirty great big capital raising,” he said.
Taylor said that other than completing existing projects, the B&I unit was getting out of the business. That means that that unit within the Fletcher conglomerate is now worse than worthless.
How a building company has managed to lose money in what analysts say has been the biggest construction boom in nearly a century is mind boggling and really the whole of the Fletcher board should resign – not just forego all their fees.
Before today, Fletcher shares were already down over 23% on a year ago in a bull market that saw the NZX rise 22% in 2017. Just two years ago Fletcher was the country’s largest listed company by value. Now, it is well down the chain.
Share market commentator Brian Gaynor of Milford Asset Management said Fletcher’s board was too shallow and wide, full of lawyers and accountants while lacking construction industry knowledge. He said decisions to move from being an integrated conglomerate to a diversified one, with purchases of international companies Formica and Crane Group, were ill-advised.
Norris denied lack of construction industry knowledge and noted Taylor, who is not on the board, has expertise in this area.
(Simon Louisson is a retired journalist who reported for The Wall Street Journal, AP Dow Jones Newswires, New Zealand Press Association and Reuters and briefly was a political and media adviser to the Green Party.)
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- Government’s move to monetise access to nature a slippery slope
The Green Party is voicing serious concerns over the Government’s proposal to charge for access to public conservation land, released today. ...7 days ago
- Green Party condemns the passage of Treaty Principles Bill
The Green Party condemns the passing of the Treaty Principles Bill at first reading, and is clear that the fight is not over. ...1 week ago
- Stand Up for Te Tiriti
Te Tiriti o Waitangi is our country’s founding document. It forms the basis of the relationship between Māori and the Crown – and the Aotearoa New Zealand we live in today. ...1 week ago
- Release: Over 15,000 sign Labour’s open letter to Luxon
As the hīkoi to Parliament continues, Labour has sent an open letter to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon in a last-ditch attempt to get him to kill the Treaty Principles Bill. ...1 week ago
- Fast Track Bill threatens environment, climate and reputation
The fast-track legislation passing its second reading in Parliament is another step towards environmental ruin. ...1 week ago
- Greens join King’s Counsel in calling for Treaty Principles Bill to be abandoned
The Prime Minister must answer the call from a group of senior lawyers of the King’s Counsel to abandon the divisive Treaty Principles Bill. ...1 week ago
- Chris Hipkins’ apology statement to state and faith-based care survivors
...1 week ago
- Release: Labour formally apologises to state and faith-based care survivors
Labour joins with the Government in unreservedly apologising for the abuse, neglect and trauma including torture in state and faith-based care and for ignoring the voices of survivors for too long. ...1 week ago
- Green Party stands in support of survivors of abuse in care
Today, the Green Party stands alongside the survivors of abuse in state care and faith-based care as the Government issues an historic apology. ...1 week ago
- Green Party calls for conscience vote on Treaty Principles Bill
The Green Party has written to the Speaker of the House requesting he enable a personal vote on the Treaty Principles Bill. ...2 weeks ago
- Govt move to exclude journalist risks chilling effect
The Green Party is alarmed by the Government’s move to exclude a journalist from covering this week’s apology for the survivors of abuse in state and faith-based care. ...2 weeks ago
- Without action, an apology will be empty air
For tomorrow’s apology to survivors of abuse in state and faith-based care to hold any water, the Government must not pursue the same policies that drove the abuse in the first place. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Concerns remain over tobacco interference
Concerns about the tobacco industry’s ability to interfere in government policy making remain, despite the inability of the Office of the Auditor-General to investigate the Government’s decision to halve the excise tax on heated tobacco products. ...2 weeks ago
- Urgent wake-up call on climate
The Climate Change Commission’s latest advice indicates Aotearoa needs to be stepping up on climate action. ...2 weeks ago
- Green MP’s Meme-ber’s Bill set to save the world
Break out the punchlines and dust off your meme folder: Green Party MP Kahurangi Carter’s Copyright (Parody and Satire) Amendment Bill was pulled from the Ballot yesterday. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Poroporoaki: Ta Robert (Bom) Gillies
Kua hinga te manawa kairākau o Te Rua Tekau Ma Waru Tiwhatiwha te po! Kakarauru i te po! Ka rapuhia kei hea koe kua riro! Haere e te Ika a Whiro ki o tini hoa kua ngaro atu ki te Pō ...2 weeks ago
- Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori call on the Prime Minister to block the Treaty Principles Bill
The opposition parties stand united for an Aotearoa that honours Te Tiriti, rather than seeking to rewrite it. Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori are working together against the Government’s divisive Treaty Principles Bill. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori call on the Prime Minister to block the Treaty Principle...
The opposition parties stand united for an Aotearoa that honours Te Tiriti, rather than seeking to rewrite it. Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori are working together against the Government’s divisive Treaty Principles Bill. ...2 weeks ago
- NZ must pursue independent foreign policy
The Green Party says the need is greater than ever for Aotearoa New Zealand to pursue an independent foreign policy. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Winston Peters must apologise
The Deputy Prime Minister should apologise to the public servant he named and blamed for something they did not do, and for misusing the rules of Parliament. ...2 weeks ago
- Government action provides Southland farmers more time to meet plan requirements
The Government is taking action to ensure Southland farmers and growers are not affected by unreasonable regional farm plan deadlines, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay, Environment Minister Penny Simmonds and Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard say.“Cabinet has agreed to provide more time for farmers and growers to comply with regional rules ...11 hours ago - Bill reaffirms Government’s commitment to crack down on serious youth offending
The Oranga Tamariki (Responding to Serious Youth Offending) Bill had its first reading at Parliament today. The Bill reaffirms the Government’s commitment to crack down on serious youth offending, Minister for Children Karen Chhour says. “In recent years we have seen an unacceptable spike in youth offending. “This Bill makes ...11 hours ago
- Critical milestones for earthquake buildings review
Fairer, more sensible rules about managing earthquake risks are a step closer with the passing of legislation and the appointment of an independent chair to provide expert advice, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The Government is committed to reinvigorating our cities and regions to support economic growth, ...12 hours ago
- State of the art radiology machine for Auckland
People in Northland and Auckland will benefit from a new machine for cancer treatment installed at the Regional Cancer and Blood Service at Auckland City Hospital. The MV5 linear accelerator, or LINAC machine, officially opened today targets cancer tumours with pinpoint accuracy. Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says this new, ...12 hours ago
- Foreign Minister to visit Europe
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Europe for high-level talks with France, Germany and the United Kingdom next week. "Since taking office almost a year ago, the Coalition Government has emphasised the importance we place on New Zealand's traditional and likeminded diplomatic and ...13 hours ago
- First arrests made under gang patch ban
Police have made their first arrests under the new gang patch legislation, with two gang members arrested, says Police Minister Mark Mitchell. “Just before 11 this morning, Police in Wairoa apprehended a gang member for wearing a patch to the supermarket. He has been arrested and will now face enforcement ...14 hours ago
- Better support for victims of sexual violence
The Government is proposing two major changes to name suppression laws that will put the views of victims of sexual violence first, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “We are committed to restoring law and order and these two proposed changes will help ensure the victims of crime are put at ...15 hours ago
- Government moving forward with Regional Deals
Cabinet has agreed to invite all regions to submit proposals for Regional Deals between central and local government that drive economic growth and deliver the infrastructure our country needs, Local Government Minister Simeon Brown and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop say. Inviting all regions to propose a Regional Deal that boosts ...15 hours ago
- MSA pilot participant update
One of the ten young men selected to participate in the Military-Style Academy Pilot has allegedly reoffended. Children’s Minister Karen Chhour is disappointed but says it would be naïve to think that none of these young men would reoffend. “I’m saddened that this young person has not taken this opportunity ...16 hours ago
- Attendance rates increase, again
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says that school attendance is continuing to rise. In Term 3 of 2024 51.3 per cent of students attended school regularly, an increase of 5.3 percentage points from 46 per cent in Term 3 of 2023. “This Government has prioritised student attendance and it is ...18 hours ago
- Improving the lives of young New Zealanders
Ensuring New Zealand is the best place in the world for children and young people is the vision at the heart of the Government’s new Child and Youth Strategy, Child Poverty Reduction Minister Louise Upston says. “Childhood represents a huge opportunity to set people on a positive path towards living ...20 hours ago
- Government continues work to reinstate livestock exports by sea
The Government is reinstating the trade of livestock exports by sea while ensuring the highest standards of animal welfare, says Associate Minister of Agriculture Andrew Hoggard.“The Government will introduce legislation changes to reinstate the trade, enhance oversight, and strengthen requirements for exporters to identify risks and manage the welfare of ...1 day ago
- Speech to the National Quality Forum 2024
Tēnā koutou katoa – it is a pleasure to be here today. I would like to begin by acknowledging the important leadership role you all play in ensuring a quality health system New Zealanders can trust. There is enormous clinical expertise in this room covering a wide range of disciplines. ...2 days ago
- New Zealand’s COP29 National Statement
Tēnā koutou katoa. Mr President, Excellencies, Delegates. New Zealand, and all nations represented here today, are already dealing with the impacts of climate change. Our households, businesses, and economies are bearing the costs of its effects. The choices we make now will shape the severity of these impacts for generations ...2 days ago
- Latest Quarterly Investment Report released
The Government has released its second Quarterly Investment Report (QIR) which shows substantial work still to be done by agencies to improve investment reporting and meet the Government’s expectations, Infrastructure and Acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “New Zealand has significant infrastructure and investment needs. The Government is determined to get ...2 days ago
- New Zealand supporting loss and damage fund
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced New Zealand will contribute NZ$10 million to the new Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage while at the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan. “New Zealand is joining the global effort to address the significant challenge of responding to ...2 days ago
- Gang crackdown begins at stroke of midnight
The free ride for gangs is over when the clock strikes midnight tonight, with tough new laws officially coming into effect, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith and Police Minister Mark Mitchell say. “Gang patches will no longer be able to be worn in public. To earn the right to wear a ...2 days ago
- LGFA increases borrowing capacity to support high growth councils
The Government is welcoming the decision by the Local Government Funding Agency to increase access to financing tools for fast growing councils to support greater investment in critical infrastructure, Local Government Minister Simeon Brown says.“Communities across the country are facing an infrastructure deficit and significant population growth is projected in ...2 days ago
- Temporary Traffic Management costs revealed
The Government has revealed that over the past three years, the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) has spent an eyewatering $786 million of taxpayers’ money on road cones and temporary traffic management (TTM), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“When I became Minister, I was surprised to learn that that NZTA did ...2 days ago
- Jurisdiction of Disputes Tribunal to double
Legislation that will double the financial jurisdiction of the Disputes Tribunal from $30,000 to $60,000 has passed first reading in Parliament today, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith. “We need to improve court timeliness and access to justice so that Kiwis and get on with their lives. Court delays affect everyone, the ...2 days ago
- Protecting New Zealand from foreign interference
Legislation that will specifically criminalise foreign interference and strengthen espionage offences has passed first reading in Parliament today, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “It is normal and appropriate for states to interact and work to influence one another. This encourages cooperation and can have mutually beneficial outcomes. “However, the reality ...2 days ago
- Significant milestone for Canterbury Road of National Significance
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed news that the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) Board has approved funding towards pre-implementation and early works on the State Highway 1 (SH1) Belfast to Pegasus Motorway and Woodend Bypass Road of National Significance (RoNS). “Reaching this significant milestone is a reflection of our Government’s ...2 days ago
- Health survey results to help drive change
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says findings from the annual Health Survey highlight the need to continue driving better health outcomes for New Zealanders. The New Zealand Health Survey is an annual snapshot of key metrics measured from July 2023 – July 2024. Findings released this morning include: In 2023/24, ...3 days ago
- Final push needed to get to Smokefree 2025
A renewed effort to get people to quit smoking will build on what has worked to date and target the groups who most need support, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello said today. “The latest New Zealand Health Survey results show the daily smoking rate at 6.9 per cent and we ...3 days ago
- New diplomatic appointments
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced four new diplomatic appointments. “Our diplomats play an important role in ensuring New Zealand’s interests are maintained and enhanced across the world,” Mr Peters says. “It is a pleasure to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign ...3 days ago
- Next steps for Regulatory Standards Bill
Regulation Minister David Seymour has today announced the next steps in the Government’s plan improve the quality of regulation by opening consultation on a proposed Regulatory Standards Bill. “New Zealand's low wages can be blamed on low productivity, and low productivity can be blamed on poor regulation,” says Mr Seymour. ...3 days ago
- Red Tape Tipline goes live
Minister for Regulation David Seymour has today announced that the Ministry for Regulation’s Red Tape Tipline is now live. “We want to hear about your red tape horror stories. From today, New Zealanders will have a say on how they are regulated through an online portal,” says Mr Seymour. The ...3 days ago
- Youth Parliament 2025 announced
The Minister for Youth Matt Doocey has today announced the eleventh Youth Parliament will be taking place in 2025. “Youth Parliament offers a unique youth development opportunity to young people from across New Zealand to experience the political process and learn about how government works,” says Mr Doocey. “The two-day ...4 days ago
- Police stats show promising change
After nearly a year in Government, Kiwis have seen significant change across law and order with promising early results shown across some Police statistics, says Police Minister Mark Mitchell. “In August 2023, I told New Zealanders that if they had not started to see a change in public safety within ...4 days ago
- Better coordination of anti-scam efforts
With the launch of Fraud Awareness Week, the Government is committing to new coordination efforts across industry and government to combat online scams, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Online financial scams are a growing problem for New Zealand. New data released today shows that Kiwis lost nearly ...4 days ago
- Minister to consider 7AA select committee report
Minister for Children Karen Chhour will consider the recommendations made by the Social Services and Community Committee in its report back to Parliament on the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill. “I want to thank the people who made submissions and those who appeared before the committee in ...4 days ago
- Defence Minister to attend ASEAN meeting
Defence Minister Judith Collins will this week attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus in Vientiane, Laos. “We need to take every opportunity to engage with our international partners, given the increasingly unstable geo-political situation,” Ms Collins says. “New Zealand has a long-standing commitment to this ...4 days ago
- Launching the White Ribbon Ride
The Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence, Karen Chhour, was on hand to wish riders well at the start of the North Island leg of the White Ribbon Ride in Whakatāne this morning. The ride helps mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, ...4 days ago
- Construction to begin on next stage of Papakura to Drury
Construction on the next stage of the SH1 Papakura to Drury project will begin early next month, with the contract for works awarded to Fulton Hogan, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. "SH1 Papakura to Drury is a key project that will drive economic growth and productivity, reduce congestion, and enable people ...6 days ago
- NZ signs trade deal with Costa Rica, Iceland and Switzerland
Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has signed a pioneering trade agreement that prioritises New Zealand’s sustainable exports at a ceremony during APEC in Peru today. “The Agreement on Trade and Sustainability (ACCTS), between Costa Rica, Iceland, and Switzerland was concluded in July of this year and opens up significant ...6 days ago
- Government and iwi work together on aquaculture
Five new Aquaculture Settlement Areas will help ensure Ngāi Tahu shares in the opportunities aquaculture offers for Southland’s economy, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. “The Aquaculture Settlement Areas (ASAs) I’m announcing today set aside space so the Crown and Ngāi Tahu can assess their potential for aquaculture development. ...7 days ago
- Government launches review to ensure electricity market is fit-for-purpose
The terms of reference for a review of the performance of the electricity market have been released. The review, initiated by the Coalition Government during the power crisis in winter will look at whether current regulations and market design support economic growth and access to reliable and affordable electricity, Energy Minister ...7 days ago
- Speech to Social Investment Hui: Jack and his whānau need our help
Kia ora koutou katoa. Nau mai, haere mai, piki mai. Ki te mihi atu ahau, ki te manwhenua nei, Te Atiawa, Ngāti toa rangatira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Thank you, Andy, for your introduction. Let me acknowledge you as the new Chief Executive of the Social Investment ...7 days ago
- Minister of State for Trade heads to Brisbane for PACER Plus meeting
Minister of State for Trade Nicola Grigg has travelled to Australia to attend the PACER Plus Ministers Meeting in Brisbane. “Trade plays a critical role in driving employment, economic growth, and improving the standards of living in the Pacific Region. The Government is strongly committed to supporting Pacific Island countries ...7 days ago
- Proposals to modernise conservation released
Toitū te taiao – Our environment endures The Government is consulting on proposals to modernise New Zealand’s conservation management system, aiming to protect relevant natural areas while supporting sustainable growth in tourism and regional economies, Conservation Minister Tama Potaka says. “Today, the Department of Conservation – Te Papa Atawhai is ...7 days ago
- Grattan on Friday: Marles plays a defensive bat on nuclear as the government rushes to get though la...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Richard Marles is an ambitious man who hasn’t given up the dream of one day reaching the top job. But, despite being deputy prime minister, his profile is much lower than that of Treasurer Jim ...4 hours ago - NEW POLL: Kiwis Overwhelmingly Support MPs’ Expenses Transparency Law Change
62% of respondents support the extension of the OIA to cover MPs’ spending, compared to just 13% opposed and 24% were unsure. ...6 hours ago - The House: Meanwhile, a week of passing law
The political week has been packed with worthy distractions, but all week Parliament has focused on passing new laws. Here are the highlights. ...7 hours ago - The biggest difference between Hīkoi mō te Tiriti and past hīkoi: More support from non-Māori
Analysis - The diversity of voices during the hīkoi was noticeable - from tangata moana to young immigrants to elderly Pākehā from the South Island. ...7 hours ago
- The House: Samoan citizenship restoration – ‘It means we belong to this land’
When the bill to restore NZ citizenship to some Samoans passed this week, Parliament's galleries were full to the brim with members of the community. ...8 hours ago
- More Delays In Action On Use Of Puberty Blockers With Children
Women’s Rights Party Co-leader Jill Ovens says the Ministry has put New Zealand children at risk by continuing to allow “off-label” prescribing of puberty blockers at far higher rates than other similar countries. ...9 hours ago
- Police Minister adamant he wasn’t aware of gang members training at gun clubs
That is despite two papers from police that raised the matter with him. ...9 hours ago
- Shorten declares himself ‘a proud moderate’, saying Australians ‘in the middle’ shouldn’t ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Bill Shorten has declared himself “a proud moderate” in a valedictory speech declaring parliament has the responsibility to ensure the extremes of left and right do not set the terms of political debate. Shorten, ...10 hours ago
- New ‘best practice’ principles for superannuation products are coming. We asked a panel of exper...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matt Garrow, Editorial Web Developer Studio Romantic/Shutterstock We all know how important it is to save enough money for retirement – but what about spending it wisely when we get there? Even for those who have built up a suitable ...10 hours ago
- Government accused of betraying Kiwis’ trust over lack of consultation on live exports
The government has always vowed to reinstate live exports by sea, which was banned by the previous Labour government. ...10 hours ago
- 7 things you can do if you think you sweat too much
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Freeman, Associate Professor of Dermatology, Bond University ERIK Miheyeu/Shutterstock Sweating is our body’s way of cooling down, a bit like an internal air conditioner. When our core temperature rises (because it’s hot outside, or you’re exercising), sweat glands all ...10 hours ago
- Phenergan for under 6s is now banned due to hallucination fears. Here’s what to use instead
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nial Wheate, Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Macquarie University Australia’s drug regulator has issued a safety warning over the medicine Phenergan and related products containing the antihistamine drug promethazine. The Therapeutic Goods Administration said the over-the-counter products should not be given to children ...10 hours ago
- A new stage adaptation of Peter Carey’s Jack Maggs is a delightful homage to theatrical storytelli...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Campbell, Lecturer, Performing Arts, UniSA Creative, University of South Australia Matt Byrne/STCSA Jack Maggs is a delight and a homage to theatrical storytelling in Australia. Based on Peter Carey’s bestselling novel, Jack Maggs follows the ex-convict as he lands ...10 hours ago
- The government has introduced laws for its social media ban. But key details are still missing
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Angus, Professor of Digital Communication, Director of QUT Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology Ron Lach/Pexels The federal government today introduced into parliament legislation for its social media ban for people under 16 years. Communications Minister Michelle ...11 hours ago
- Archives NZ, National Library to cut 27 roles
The Department of Internal Affairs wants to bring the two organisations under the joint leadership of the Chief Archivist and National Librarian. ...11 hours ago
- Gang patch ban: Members warn of potential for violence to ‘erupt’ as new laws enforced
"I can't see this lasting unless they have a budget to lock fullas up in jail which I think is absolutely stupid, really it's ludicrous," Ngavii Pekapo, who set up a Mongrel Mob chapter 54 years ago, says. ...11 hours ago
- ACT leader David Seymour raises doubts about Waikato medical school
Government documents show ACT leader David Seymour told the government he was "dissatisfied" with a cost-benefit analysis. ...11 hours ago
- National’s Erica Stanford allegedly calls Labour’s Jan Tinetti a ‘stupid bitchR...
The Education Minister has apologised in Parliament for her remark. ...11 hours ago
- Labour backs new Police Commissioner – but warns against routine arming
The alternative to policing by consent would be a police state, which New Zealanders don't want, the party says. ...13 hours ago
- Youth on boot camp pilot re-offended five weeks after release
Children's Minister Karen Chhour said while it was disappointing, it would naïve to think none of the participants would lapse. ...13 hours ago
- In photos: People of the hīkoi, and why they marched
Hikoi mō Te Tiriti has come to an end, going down in history as the largest march to Parliament in Aotearoa. ...14 hours ago
- ‘Everything is becoming a culture war’: Jon Ronson on conspiracies and cycleways
Ahead of his appearance in Aotearoa, the acclaimed British journalist, podcaster and documentarian talks to Stewart Sowman-Lund about why people are still fascinated by the fringes. The last place I would expect to find Jon Ronson is relaxing in the countryside. The iconic British journalist and writer is best known ...14 hours ago - Kia kaha Lebanon: NZ media only tell half your story of struggle
The United States has vetoed a UN Security Council ceasefire resolution — for the fourth time — in Israel’s war on Gaza, while Hezbollah demands a complete ceasefire and “protection of Lebanon’s sovereignty” in any deal with Israel. Amid the death and devastation, Joe Hendren reflects on his time in ...14 hours ago
- ‘Deserves a Bafta’: After the Party premieres in the UK to five-star reviews
The acclaimed New Zealand drama has just premiered on TV in the United Kingdom, and the five-star reviews are already flowing in. Six months after it was called a “blistering” “tour de force” by Australian critics, and nearly a year since The Spinoff declared it the best drama New Zealand ...14 hours ago
- Drugs are getting cheaper and easier to find in Aotearoa
New Zealanders are drinking and smoking less, but most other recreational drugs are becoming cheaper, more popular and more available, two new reports show. Two significant new surveys about drugs in Aotearoa were released this week, offering a rare insight into New Zealanders’ choice of substances, which ones are becoming ...15 hours ago
- COP29: ‘climate finance’ for the Pacific is mostly loans, saddling small island nations with mor...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Ratuva, Director, Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, University of Canterbury Lenora Qereqeretabua, the deputy speaker of Fiji’s Parliament, at the COP29 climate summit. IISD/ENB/Mike Muzurakis, CC BY-SA As this year’s UN climate summit reaches its final stage of negotiations, Pacific ...15 hours ago
- Review: The magic of Wicked and the curse of corporate greed
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- Dame Jacinda Ardern to be given United Nations leadership award
She will get the champion for global change award from the United Nations Foundation at a ceremony in New York tomorrow. ...17 hours ago
- NZ will resume live animal exports – to low demand
Analysis: NZ is lifting what was supposed to be a permanent ban on live animal exports. But it’s not the lucrative industry it once was. The post NZ will resume live animal exports – to low demand appeared first on Newsroom. ...17 hours ago - Financial forms of family violence affect one in seven of us – but the law is lagging
There are calls for New Zealand’s Family Violence Act to name economic harm as a standalone type of violence, rather than a subcategory of psychological abuse, to bring it in line with the United Kingdom and Australia. Economic harm – restricting access to, sabotaging or exploiting another person’s financial resources, ...17 hours ago
- Downside Risks To Treasury’s Economic And Fiscal Forecasts
New Zealand is currently running a structural fiscal deficit, with expenditure exceeding revenue. Economic growth falling short of expectations has been making it harder for the Government to bring the books back into balance. ...18 hours ago
- Science continues to exclude Indigenous communities. Fixing this benefits everyone
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jordan Peter Anthony Pitt, Associate Dean of Indigenous Strategy and Services (Faculty of Science), University of Sydney An enduring challenge facing science around the world is how to best include and engage Indigenous communities. In Australia, for example, 0.5% of Indigenous ...19 hours ago
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania Cricket originated in England, but has been spread worldwide by British soldiers and settlers in the past few hundred years. It is now the second most popular sport in ...19 hours ago
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Renee Barnes, Associate professor of Journalism, University of the Sunshine Coast Mladen Zivkovic/Shutterstock As America takes stock after Donald Trump’s re-election to the presidency, it’s worth highlighting the AI-generated fake photos, videos and audio shared during the campaign. A slew ...19 hours ago
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Phoebe Hart, Associate Professor, Film Screen & Animation, Queensland University of Technology Julia Firak Stan’s new Christmas film Nugget is Dead is a colourful production that follows the rules of the seasonal genre film to a tee – with an Aussie ...19 hours ago
- Help Me Hera: Should I cut contact with my ex-stepdad?
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- New Zealand Drops In Global Ranking On Climate Action
If the government won’t hold polluters to account, then people will. People are increasingly taking to the streets and the courtrooms, putting their bodies on the line to shut down polluting industries. This will only escalate further unless New ...19 hours ago
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I really have to get into this Board of Directors business. Sweet gig, you can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars doing very little, and no consequences if you fail!
(Well, no consequences for *you*)
what do you think english is going to do? go farming(yeah right)
National MP’s take their bribes when they leave Parliament.
So true real gravy
How does Norris get into building after being a flying fig for Air Nz
And another of Keystrokes dodgy deals in the mix
Surprising na, just more of the reasons for our colossal debt from his bs management
Norris on $426,000!Good work if you can get it.
Mind you it must be the current market rate for,’talent’.
Now, now, the reason they are paid so much is that they’re all highly trained and experienced people who can captain the ship away from the rocks of market uncertainty and avoid the foolish errors of less experienced professionals 🙄 /sarc /sarc /puke
I agree with your sarcasm, but Fontera CEO is on 8.6mil per year…. that’s 100 times the avg kiwi income, its obscene.
He does 100 times the work of an average New Zealander?
so he works 5000 hours a weeK? amazing!
Not only the grossly inappropriate 8 million+ in fees to a B rate CEO from Holland but also they make the farmers pay into a slushy fund full to the brim of cash for ‘innovating’ or some crap like that, but when anyone want’s to do anything that will grow or transform with the slushy fund, nope, apparently management are just siphoning it off somehow.
That’s why Fonterra is in the doldrums – they have the money to what ever they want, but management are too stupid/lazy/ineffective to actually transform and go from milk powder to high value items apart from in a small way. Their main focus is on cost cutting and volume which is completely out of touch with modern consumer focused, high skilled, agile business.
Fonterra managers are just cracking the whip and saying “make more milk” in some third world, third rate ideology, lobbying the government to not adjust to climate change and environmental challenges, and therefore closer and closer to becoming less and less able to survive in the modern world.
Whenever they do do a project they make everything worse than 10 years ago. That’s how crap Fonterra managers have become under the new CEO who fails to understand the company, NZ or the culture.
And that’s what has happened to Fletchers. They have done nothing as managers except collect fees and networking (trusting and networking with John Key has cost them millions by the look of it as Sky City),while Fletcher fails to adjust to modern business practises and keep a highly skilled agile workforce. (Nope do NOT mean, cheaper, fakery skilled, dinosaur workforce that would not be able to evaluate a new idea, without KPMG, 20 accountants, 40 line managers and 3 lawyers wiping their bums and taking years to do it).
Guess what. Business is changing and fast! Dinosaur executives and managers that spend all their days at lunches and hire their mates at the big 5 and rely on tenders organised by friends like JK, are being caught out and losing billions.
And somebody here, the other day claimed Fonterra was a co-operative. LOLs as they say.
Unless dairy farmers are all masochists
They certainly swallowed a heap of cowshit when it was restructured for wideboy sharemarket trading.
Ha! While preparing to accelerate through windows of opportunity as they arise. 😂
Yes space monkey
That’s not rocket science!
Why are we just hearing this now? It has been brewing for 2 years. Did I miss reports?
There is a possibility of it hitting the banks hard, and it has already impacted plenty of ordinary lives.
This should be looked at forensically. Why are they not liable for such compounded losses.
Australia has been known to rake back all earnings over 5 years.
No wonder Twyford said he would be working with mid range developers.
Imagine how badly they would have done if they had only had a $350k p.a. chairman! Money well spent, every penny.
Norris had no ‘talent’ & he should fall on his sword and be stripped of this salary as he was given a greasy golden spoon by the greasy national party on all contracts and fucked it up still.
Tar and feather the man.
Norris was one of NZs top 5 corporate leaders across Australasia.
He has nearly destroyed NZ’s biggest listed company.
He’s lost his $420kplus job.
He won’t be doing lunch in this town again.
He’s unemployable.
He’s socially fucked.
And he could potentially go the way of Bruce Judge or Graham if the company splits up and shareholders really seek revenge.
Norris is now on our corporate wall of infamy.
He can keep the change.
It’s ‘big bucks’, not “change”, that Sir Ralph gets to keep – his ilk are risk averse when it comes to personal wealth. But maybe the ‘awfulness’ of his current situation is a consideration when deciding to award CEOs their big bucks in the first place.
CEOs come and go, but the only way for collective salaries of CEOs is UP.
http://fortune.com/2016/07/15/ceo-pay-2
On the contrary Norrris has been happily claiming astonishingly large remuneration and running things into the ground for ever CBA, fonterra, Air new zealand, team nz . I see no reason why he cannot just move on to destroy another
+1 xanthe
This is why CEOs are paid good money.
They have the contacts, and generally very good knowledge.
But if they fuck up, that’s their career gone.
The only one I’ve ever seen that happen to was Gattung and that’s because she was stupid enough to admit the reality of telco marketing tricks in public.
You’ll probably find Ling was the last competant CEO they had as he did a pretty good job to extricate them from the shambolic spark (nee vector) arena roof situation they found themselves in.
Once he stabilised what he could he shot through and Adamson took the poisoned challice till his eventual demise as the rot set in long before he got to the top gig.
Adamson did the obvious things in the badly managed formica division (as fletchers had been parking it’s dead rotting wood in the upper levels) …..a trick that can’t be repeated in the NZ building division
Time to bring in a hired gun and start handing out pink slips.
(could be a job for smiling assassin John Key)
that’s one of the reasons they’re in such deep trouble as they purged those pesky voices of dissent who were the experienced hands raising the alarm.
Ling did his best to appease the various factions but it’s a hospital pass of a gig now.
That is a cultural issue then. Management who only want to hear good news so that they can lie to the shareholders. When SHTF they pass the blame back down to their staff
“But if they fuck up, that’s their career gone…” I think you will find, they just continue in NZ and the same names just keep coming up in every company and corporation. Names like Paul Rebstock, Shiply (Mainzeal) etc
I’m astonished that they’ve lasted so long. I rubbed shoulders with them in the early 70’s and they were a cowboy outfit then. My son subbed to them 2 years ago and nothing has changed.
However it is not unique to them. Having been an executive in two public company’s and having to present papers to a board for budgets and capital expenditure, I have no faith in their competance. They might have dollar signs tattooed on there eyeballs, but most of them couldn’t find their way to the boardroom if it wasn’t for the smell of lunch emanating from the adjacent kitchen.
Never ever seen a board member walk around the plant to understand how the place works.
And, after gaining permission for capital expenditure with the appropriate ROI timescale I’ve never been questioned at the end of that period if I achieved the stated objective.
You sound like you have great tales from the industry to tell.
The more Fletcher stories come out the more I wonder why Tommy Parker jumped last month from tier 2 head of all capital at NZTA to Fletchers.
T Parker – perhaps wanted to park in a better high-rise parking building free!
The answer is probably money made him move, and moving in the right circles that of course go round and round and getting into them is not easy and should be embraced when offered, as they are so smooth and symmetrical.
$$$$$$$$…..everyone has a price.
NZTA to Fletchers – one screw up to the next.
This debacle has stolen money from heaps of small Kiwisaver investors. I agree the whole Board should go. Back-slapping bozos.
>This debacle has stolen money from heaps of small Kiwisaver investors
And given it to lots of small Sky City investors. I’m not sure that the world is a much worse place overall…
A.
“Personal responsibility”?
dont be silly, thats only for poor people
Or the owners of a private business
Only limited liability there.
You can still lose quite a bit
Not as much as most investors. After all, shareholders don’t pay themselves an hourly or weekly rate in addition to dividends they might get from net profit.
And then there’s family trusts to further shield your previous profits from the business.
whereas poor people lose everything
Yes, you can shelter some money through limited liability structures, trusts, the provisions of the bankruptcy regime etc. You know that if these protections weren’t available, less people would be willing to start a business. But perhaps you hate capitalism so this wouldn’t be a problem for you. In which case, shrug, not much more I can say about that.
> whereas poor people lose everything
Not quite sure where you’re going with this and I don’t want to enter into a ‘who can lose out the most’ race so I’ll leave it.
A.
The ones more likely to fail would be less likely to take a punt.
Why do you think creditors should subsidise the poor business decisions of others?
“Investors” knowingly take the risk at the chance of big gains.
Workers and sub contractors, however.
How many people with a Kiwisaver account knew Fletcher was part of their exposure?
Is anyone’s Kiwisaver much affected by a moderate fall in Fletchers shares? Should be a small part of a well diversified portfolio
KiwiSaver invests people in the financial ponzi scheme, in the mistaken belief that putting money in hedge funds and derivative’s, will result in enough resorces in our society to feed and house the elderly in future.
Of course raising taxes now, to invest in infrastructure, education, housing and sustainable development, is much more likely to achieve the required result.
Privatising retirement provision is likely to end in the same inadequate shambles, as all the other privatisations’.
You gotta be careful who you lend to. Is part of life.
I do feel sorry for the subbies though. I reckon theres something fundamentally wrong in how subbies are treated. Should be higher up the ladder in a liquidation perhaps??
How far would you get supplying trades on a cash up front basis?
That’s what I was saying about subbies having a bit of a raw deal
Not paying people who have done work for you, without a good reason, should be a criminal offence.
So many builders and subbies have gone broke.
I had more in mind that subbies would come ahead of other creditors. I don’t think you can really put bankrupts in jail for failing to pay their debts. That’d be back to the 19th century
A.
Getting goods or services for payment 20th month following and not paying for at least 3 months, or just not paying at all, is how a significant part of NZ operates. It’s bullshit and holds the economy back by diverting cashflow to the few.
This isn’t just outfits and individuals that are going tits up, it’s general practice, ie Fontera.
It’s also theft. But under our law it’s a civil matter, not criminal. These lovely people who don’t pay are just as much anti-social dross as the hoods that shoplift, burgle houses or download torrents, just they can do it with impunity, and should face the same consequences.
There are a people driving new Range Rovers around town here who do it by not paying subbies, and have done it repeatedly and for large amounts. They get away with it because there’s no consequences and a huge turnover of tradies through the town who don’t know the history of the people they work for.
> Getting goods or services for payment 20th month following and not paying for at least 3 months, or just not paying at all, is how a significant part of NZ operates.
I’ve never encountered this personally but I can believe it happens, and it sounds incredibly annoying and problematic
A.
Shareholders are the ones who support so many businesses being “leveraged” so they can get dividends. We saw National doing it with SOE’s to pretend there was no deficit.
Never see them paying them back in bad years, or to pay creditors such as unpaid staff, though.
Small businesses can’t get credit without personal guarantees.
Maybe the dodgy tender process for the dodgy convention centre is why John Key quit. How can you lose $410m on a building which costs $430m?
Pretty easy by the look of things.
A couple of previous examples;
Air New Zealand’s Korean adventure in 90’s, flew lots of Koreans to NZ and back and didn’t get paid, all the losses were shifted into a subsidiary (Mt Cook Group) which was then ‘restructured”
A construction company that got a contract to build one of the blocks in the HIlton complex at Kawarau Falls. Went tits up before the roof was on owing Placemakers and others millions. There was evidently some contention over whether the contract was supply and build or labour only. But that’s only one of many rumours about where the money went on that development, which is another story in itself.
Muttonbird, see my response to this below. The tender process for the building contract was in no way ‘dodgy’ and had nothing whatsoever to do with the government of the time. I think people are assuming that because the Crown ran a tender process to decide which developer would be chosen to build the NZICC (which SKYCITY won, and the Auditor-General criticised the process the then-government followed) they also ran the process to find a building contractor (Fletcher). That’s not the case.
Cheers
Colin
LOL these guys are heroes for building cut price buildings for everyone
No, that’s actually the problem. Cut price anything almost always ends up costing more. As an example in this if they’d kept standards high we wouldn’t have had Leaky Buildings that’s costing billions.
I was joking
I wasn’t.
If we blame boards of directors for debacles like this, then we have to praise them (and allow them to be richly rewarded) when companies do well.
I’m inclined to do neither, because I’m not convinced they have much effect for either good or ill.
Probably Fletchers would have stuffed up whoever was on the board, and in previous successful years they might have done just as brilliantly if the board consisted of 6 white rabbits in top hats.
In the world of business, more deluded bollocks is talked about ‘leadership’ than anything else.
They are richly rewarded. The problem is that when they fuck up they’re still richly rewarded.
Then, in your opinion, why do they exist?
Possible but nearly impossible to prove. About the only way is to get rid of the capitalist hierarchy and turn it into a cooperative and see if that works better.
True.
Draco
I’d guess it’s likely that people in low- to mid-level operational roles at Fletchers have known for some time that there were issues. Probably they didn’t appreciate the scale of the total aggregate effect, but they were probably aware. The common problem for organisations is that there is no mechanism for such awareness at the ground level to trigger proper remedial action. In fact, internal systems and habits such as performance review processes and the need to ‘manage upwards’ through disseminating only positive news, often act as perverse incentives that discourage fixing things that are broken. This seems to me to be a feature of authoritarian/totalitarian hierarchies such as private corporations and communist dictatorships. It would indeed be very interesting to see if workers electing ‘leaders’ for a limited period only, then cycling them back into operational roles, resulted in something better.
As to your question: “Then, in your opinion, why do they exist?”
Boards are essentially money-siphoning instruments that allow socially well-connected rich people to extract money from productive enterprises that they know little about. They achieve this by offering nothing more that fairly trite, generic truisms about business management and calling it ‘governance’.
Sir Ralph Norris should’ve stuck to Banking, anyway the Fletchers crash over here with a 7.1% drop on the ASX and its the talk of the town atm. I’m hoping they drop further to under $5 dollars Aus or further a share before I buy up.
Who cares, so capitalist fill their own back pockets – what’s news in that? It happens all the time.
People will lose their jobs, well guess what, NZ is awash with working people getting shafted.
As far as I can see this news is designed to shaft any wage negotiations, or any push to getting better conditions.
Same utter crap from a incompetent class of ideological hacks and wreckers. Who then have the gall to smash working people in the face with shit wages, overpriced houses, and expensive food.
Time we were rid of this class.
> People will lose their jobs
And people, perhaps the same people, will get new jobs. Stuff still needs to get built.
> As far as I can see this news is designed to shaft any wage negotiations, or any push to getting better conditions.
[head scratch] Don’t know what you mean. They lost money and they have to fess up and deal with the consequences. I don’t see where ‘design’ comes into it.
A.
Right there is the callousness of the tory fuckwit.
People will lose jobs. Some of them will gain new jobs. The remainder… are forgotten. No suffering to see here.
It should be the same amount of people employed at the end of the day. I’m not seeing a calamity here
You are probably correct.
And probably the former Fletchers subbies will get paid more, as there is a shortage of qualified builders.
Don’t know about all the cowboys they imported to keep wages low, however?
Yes then there’s the cartel practices believed to be in place on the materials supply side with that other wonderfullly well behaved kiwi icon Carter Holt Harvey.
That’s because you’re not thinking about the labourers who face stronger competition than the qualified tradies, the subbies who can’t necessarily weather being an unsecured creditor to one of their main clients/employers, and so on.
You’re focussing on the idea that if I have two jars of pickles, drop one, then get another, I still have two jars of pickles. You’re forgetting the smashed jar on the floor. It’s alright for you, but it sucks if you’re the jar that got dropped.
> the subbies who can’t necessarily weather being an unsecured creditor to one of their main clients/employers
I do have sympathy for the subbies. There’s something wrong in the framework there.
> it sucks if you’re the jar that got dropped
Yes, but it’s great if you’re the third jar that gets chosen.
A.
Broken window fallacy. It is a huge drain on the economy and the reason why we have lots of economic activity but still a shortage of housing. Maybe leaky homes and earthquakes don’t bother economists and GDP measurements but they fucked up the real economy and real peoples lives.
Which assumes that the third jar wouldn’t have been picked up anyway.
It’s not like a forest, where trees have to die to make room for others. A society with well-run businesses grows more economic activity, circulates more money, and creates more jobs. Whether the growth model is sustainable is another debate, but to argue that a major employer going under is essentially a neutral proposition is, frankly, stupid.
> A society with well-run businesses grows more economic activity, circulates more money, and creates more jobs.
Amen to that.
A.
so there’s your calamity.
If there is a ‘calamity’ here, it consists of Fletchers doing its day-to-day job of building stuff badly. That is where the real mischief is, the loss of economic activity and jobs. A couple of (admittedly major) cost estimation errors don’t worry me so much. Some wealth transfers between shareholders and a bit of disruption, but not terrible for the economy as a whole.
I think we should probably move on from this now, everyone else has.
A.
except the people not sure whether their businesses will fold
I think Antoine just lives in the middle of a lovely bubble, can see out, but remains untouched by the real world, just consults the treatise for the answer to everything. Similar thinking to what prevailed when we got Rodgered.
(shrug) What else is one to do? I can’t fix Fletchers!
A.
You don’t need to pretend it’s not a problem, though.
A board full of directors with little to no expertise in their core business = Recipe for disaster.
Nothing wrong with one legal and one commercial expert, but unless the BoD is dominated by people who have grown up in the game, fully understand the reports they’re reading, and fully apprehend the risks they’re exposed to … shit will happen.
In the wake of this disaster, the doofus notion that ‘management’ is a generic skill, really needs to be taken out back and shot once and for all.
Fletchers drove out or removed many people who actually knew what they were doing over the years and has been tetterring for awhile.
It’s an old construction industry trick of ‘new projects’ filling up the bank without the actual major expenses hitting till the end. Works fine till the projects dry up…..keys govt gifted then Chch then sky convention centre amongst all that civil work they ‘win’.
The house of cards is finally collapsing, its bereft of the relevant nous to effect a u-turn as its full of bankers and boardroom twat lawyers having pissed off the actual management figures who knew how to run it.
I watched fletcher building write off 10mill on a project so technically retarded they were a laughing stock amongst the contractors taking the piss over a few years fleecing them.
It’s not just at board level…..the incompetence is systemic.
Ha, corporate Ponzi schemes. ‘Quick land another contract before the losses roll in on the last one.’
that’s how it rolls in construction, even on the well run and profitable projects the costs exceed the revenue each month as the finishing trades and other touches are made to get a ‘practical completion’ certificate and release the last milestone payment.
then the warranty period commences which is a whole different type of fun.
Yes, that’s why there is a career path in construction that few other industries offer. Insurers have their actuaries and builders their quantity surveyors.
RL
+100
tc at 9.58
Sounds like experience. Take note of these points I think.
I wouldn’t angst so much about the directors. Get angst about what comes next. The public bail out.
Ya reckon?? Wanna bet on It?
Many low income NZers are already picking up the bill via their Kiwisaver plans.
It’s not a biggy
Say 100k Kiwisaver balance, 5% invested in Fletchers (which is too much anyway), 7.7% fall, then you have lost nearly $400. Can be offset by gains elsewhere
Yes, shares fluctuate, there are many variables that can pull a price back. Signing off contracts on skyscrapers that lose $400 million can’t be one of them.
Owe your bank $100,000 and they’ll start legal action. Owe them 100 million and the manager takes you to lunch.
I think these clowns should lose the lot, just as I would if I made an error of that magnitude. They should be meeting the work and Income security guard this morning, just as I would be.
If that was how it worked, no one would want to run a company and so we wouldn’t have any companies.
(I realise you may be happy with that prospect)
Nah, I can’t help having an entrepreneurial punt, many are the same. I’ve run businesses most of my life. On the occasions they’ve failed, if I kept sweeping issues under the carpet, moving on to the next losing contract, I’d be left with an empty fridge and holes in my shoes.
It seems once big enough the price to pay is ordering the regular Benz instead of the AMG and I think this is wrong. Succeed, great. Fail, no worries, lets go to Paris.
So do you think it would have been better if, each time your business failed, you were stripped of all your assets and left in the dole queue?
A.
It doesn’t matter what I think, if I hadn’t acted quickly enough, it is what would of happened.
Best opportunity to smash it up into workable units and remove one of the most belligerent corporate entities in NZ that’s been screwing its partners for decades.
They recently sent the earthmoving contractor on the rangiriri piece of SH1 broke after continually screwing them down to the point they fell over.
This delayed the project whilst Higgins (recently purchased by fletchers) replaced them…..my how convenient for them.
Better times exist beyond a broken up fletchers…..bad times lurk as long as they remain as they are.
This government is chillingly silent on the whole fletcher debacle.
I can’t detect their plan for the economy outside of minor employment regulation.
May not have one??
Can you detect their plan for building lots of houses or planting lots of trees?
China Construction NZ Ltd
Funding via China Construction Bank NZ Ltd
simple.
Got a link to that?
Geez they should be ready as Clark/Cullen were aware of the dangers that the duoploly of FH and fletchers were creating in civil works.
That’s why the alliance was created with Oz’s Leightons to get some competition….anyone know how long that lasted after shonky rode into the treasury benches ?
Yes, the people that needed to know the most about the business knew the least.
The person installing the downlights needs to study for 5 years, be a qualified electrician with all certification up to date to get their $30 an hour. Fair enough, it makes sense to minimise electrocutions.
Those at the very top of the pyramid, those rewarded with the most money, those appointed to maintain profitability, their qualifications too often amount to playing T-ball with the right guy at school.
Union spokesperson says the problem is poor management and quality control:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/business/350429/fears-job-losses-will-stem-from-fletcher-s-fall
Interesting
So true +100 ““They’ve lost control of the projects they were building, when in the past they would be their employees, their project managers and they would only bring in sub trades to do specific work like the roofing.”
There is so many routs going on, so many unskilled people being used through subcontractor after subcontractor and then someone signs it off at the end.
Guess who pays apart from Fletchers for the failed thinking – the ratepayers when the council signs it off.
The owners of the buildings who can’t use them and have to fight for remedial work to be done.
I spent some time yesterday getting some info about Fletchers and it has some links that may be helpful to fill in information gaps.
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-14-02-2018/#comment-1448786
Share market commentator Brian Gaynor of Milford Asset Management said Fletcher’s board was too shallow and wide, full of lawyers and accountants while
(From the post.)
Would that be applicable to the National government we have endured for so long, and also to much of Labour? It is good to understand the lawe when going into government and know how finance works, but what about people who have training in what is called evelopment at universities, have we had enough of them to have a good balanced team of movers and shakers at the top?
How many current Labour Mps are lawyers or accountants?
Antoine
Don’t waste TS space with your spurious thoughts and enquiries.
And send a donation to the management I suggest,in gratitude for the blog providing you with some stimulation in your lounge lizard life, or perhaps your state of illness or disablement.
That is actually a good idea, how do I do that
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher_Construction
Wikipedia provides some brief details and a list of projects they have been involved in.
B/I or B&I gets used in some of Fletchers reports:
It has three main business units:
Building and interiors
South Pacific
Infrastructure
Fletchers and steel mentioned together on 9 May 2017.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11852040
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/330365/steel-complaint-against-fletcher-building
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/92382986/fletchers-steel-product-in-spotlight-after-commerce-commission-complaint
Fletchers Ltd and steel defects – brings up some interesting headings on google.
The whole advise steam is flawed by ideology right up to the top.
Look at this article from the treasury.
New Zealand’s enterprise culture: a dearth of management skills?
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/research-policy/tprp/08-04/06.htm
Doesn’t even mention local low wages as a factor but interestingly makes a case for “wages in attracting the best internationally educated individuals”.
So local wages are not a factor in a dearth of home grown management skills and skilled local people leaving or not being motivated, but wages are a factor for internationally educated individuals?
No mention of the challenges that oversea’s managers may have with language, culture and local conditions which could explain why NZ is now screwed with low local wages, a lack of upward transition for younger managers, dinosaur management overseeing NZ biggest companies with all the same networkers with the same ideas (or lack of them) and peanut wages for other managers and staff.
Nor is there any mention of inefficiency and pitfalls of overseas managers who don’t understand the local culture being bought in to oversight many local businesses.
“Improvements over the long term will come from improving the quality of early education, and from targeting support to disadvantaged and at-risk children. This needs to be followed up by ongoing engagement in quality education and training both in school and after young people enter the workforce. New Zealand also has an opportunity to access pools of international talent, and a challenge in order to retain domestically educated individuals. A range of factors are likely to be important including access to housing, cultural factors and wages in attracting the best internationally educated individuals. For a greater discussion of the mechanisms through which New Zealand’s skills base can be improved see Working Smarter: the Contribution of Skills to Productivity Growth.”
Ok, so there seems to be many assumptions, ommission and a lack of honesty in NZ analysis. That’s also part of NZ problem!! Flawed government advice from the same types of people!
I draw your attention to the IYIC which says that many internationally well educated individuals actually make idiotic and impractical decisions and a product of modernity and also do not understand that their understanding of issues might be limited by their lack of experience.
http://nassimtaleb.org/2016/09/intellectual-yet-idiot/
Up to this time there were 23 comments – short questions or smug ones from Antoine out of 95 total. Just fact finding for those interested.
SmugA. – smug, eh!
Also does anyone think it’s weird that now Kiwi’s are regulated out of doing basic renovation of their own houses, let alone build one and teachers are now responsible for accidents on kids outside their control.
But somehow in all this, industry doesn’t seem to have any responsibility for anything? The fisheries can plunder the seas, be caught but then even something basic like a camera can’t be installed (we need to take their word on it), Fletchers exec’s can lose billions in a construction boom, but that’s just some unlucky years for them, bad concrete, leaky buildings, Pike River, no corporate held accountable for it. But on the other side, the ordinary person is regulated outside of being self sufficient if they want.
Is it my imagination or is something wrong with this picture?
I draw your attention to a chairman so lazy he isn’t even expected to write his own report and the CEO/underlings who writes it don’t show it to him before releasing it.
AT is so poorly run and incompetent if it was Fletchers instead of a monopoly with free handouts from Auckland ratepayers it would be in the red a lot more than 600 million!
They cream off over a billion a year from Auckland’s with little to show for it and now want more money/resources/charges from Aucklander’s.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11986372
Note Auckland is NOT London with 10 million plus people or Los Angeles 4 million, nope Auckland only has 1.4 mill people but they still can’t make it work!
Also apparently beaches are not polluted by sewerage but actually waste water from the pollutants in roads and the massive roofs that now the plus sized houses all have with zero gardens to soak up the run offs.
Funny enough this is not a factor in any resource consents aka the pollutant run offs into the waste water, nope instead more roads, more cycle ways, more paved surfaces of any kind and more construction is encouraged and the effects of the pollution of this approach not even thought about, short or long term.
“The Safeswim website has currently noted sewage overflows at six beaches: Herne Bay, Home Bay, Okahu Bay, St Heliers, Point England and St Marys Bay.
More than 30 more beaches have a “high health risk” no-swim warning in effect.
A Watercare spokesperson told Newshub the 40 “high risk” beaches aren’t contaminated by sewage, but instead by stormwater that contains heavy metal run-off from aluminium roofs, animal excrement, pathogens, and diesel.”
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2018/02/auckland-s-sewage-contaminated-beaches-have-no-warning-signs.html
Essentially we have a bunch of morons who have been encouraging as much waste water from as many people as possible into the system and thinking detention tanks will help, but actually the polluting waste water is ending up in the local ocean meaning that Auckland beaches are unswimmable.
The effects of all the construction and increased population are not being looked at all as everything seems to be about someone making a short term dollar and a holistic approach is not even thought about.
We can have high-rises and more houses and people but not sure we will be able to swim in the beaches anymore.
Nobody swims in London’s Thames for a reason!
Not sure that’s mentioned on the glossy council magazines.
Simon Louisson gets a couple of things wrong in this article. Firstly, the John Key-led National government did not “trade off laxer gambling rules in exchange for getting the centre built”. The rules around gaming in NZ haven’t changed materially since Labour passed the Gambling Act back in 2002. The then National-led administration did pass a law allowing SKYCITY to get some extra tables and machines, and extended out the company’s licence for until 2035, in return for SKYCITY spending at least $450 million building the NZICC. But the laws are as rigid as they’ve been for some years. Certainly not laxer.
To the second point, Louisson claims “questions were raised also about the openness of the tender process that Fletcher Building won”. That’s also incorrect. I think he’s referring to the questions around the openness of the government’s tender process by which SKYCITY won the right to build the centre on behalf of the taxpayer. That was criticised at the time by the Auditor-General. That’s an entirely different thing from the contract with Fletcher Building. I’ve never seen a single question raised about that tender process.
It seems to me that in their haste to bury Steven Joyce, some commentators have conflated the problems Fletcher Building has been experiencing with the Crown’s deal to build the NZICC. For the record, the Crown had little to do with SKYCITY’s construction deal with Fletcher’s. The then-government set the parameters for the building and its overall design, but the decision to award the contract to Fletcher’s, and the terms of the deal, was SKYCITY’s alone.
Colin Espiner
General Manager Communications
SKYCITY Entertainment Group
“The then National-led administration did pass a law allowing SKYCITY to get some extra tables and machines, and extended out the company’s licence for until 2035, in return for SKYCITY spending at least $450 million building the NZICC”
Clearly, Colin, the passing of the new law was a relaxation of the rules. If allowing SKYCITY to get some extra tables and machines was within the former rules, there would be no need to pass the new law.