Mainzeal goes into receivership

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Mainzeal goes bust

3News NZ

One of New Zealand’s biggest and best-known construction companies, Mainzeal, has gone into receivership this afternoon.

The company, known for building Wellington Airport’s copper terminal, the Supreme Court and Vector Arena, couldn’t recover from its financial problems and called in receivers today.

PriceWaterHouseCoopers has been chosen by BNZ to receive the floundering construction company after Mainzeal’s director Richard Yan made the call that the company could no longer continue trading.

One of the men tasked with sorting out the business, Colin McCloy, says he will try do the best for staff, suppliers and subcontractors.

“We will work closely with all parties involved with Mainzeal contracts to determine the best way forward,” he says.

Currently, Mainzeal is part-way through a number of major projects, including the overhaul of Victoria University’s Kelburn campus, the construction of MIT’s new Manukau campus and the demolition of Clarendon Tower in Christchurch.

It has put nine tenders in for projects around New Zealand including new school buildings and road bypasses.

The construction company, which formed in 1968, had only just moved into its new head office building in Auckland.

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Comments

10/02/2013 6:48:21 a.m.

katubaldy wrote:

That's such a credible start to any comment Mike...Back in my ailing memory I recall this had something to do with Labour and an assortment of other irrelevant morsels I can go on about. Wha? Now you don't even have to remember the so called specifics you're raving on about...(priceless) .Again no mention of the Richina director that sunk the ship with his offshore construction projects or the Mainzeal Group board of independent directors bailing ship en masse the day before receivership was announced. Mainzeal construction was bled dry by Richina Pacific on offshore projects in China and why isn't the Mainzeal mother company picking up the bill? Its like Jenny Shipley came on the other night and had a Texan Governor Perry moment where she basically said...'Ooops'....sorry to all those subcontractors and creditors who are about to get lumped with this mess. Whats more, the projects the construction arm were in the middle of, like the CHCH rebuild have fallen by the wayside...I'm afraid there's more to it Mike than some jobs lost way back in the fog of your political memoirs...wow.

7/02/2013 9:21:51 a.m.

Mike wrote:

If go back a few years, we had the Summit job losses in Wellington. Oh, wait, those were boom years, and under Labour. Was that 200 of 300 jobs lost then? Petone? Newtown? I forget where, but back around 2001.

Reality is Summit worked in a declining industry, where NZ manufacturers would prefer to pay more for overseas than to buy from Summit from their own personal bigotry, as they saw Summit as foreign, from that Japanese investment, and all those NZrs employed they didn't give a damn about.

About 10 sizable players have had trouble in the last few decades. Take Feltex, Crusader, International, Bremworth, Axminister, Smith City to name just a few to have trouble in woolen carpets. If take the spinners, is about as many that were bought out on the verge of failing, even summit themselves were about to fail when the Japanese invested heavily, and without that investment the job losses would have been over a decade ago.

Business margins are tight. This leads to businesses being close to failure. Mainzeal has fallen over the edge. I'm guessing what has happened is Mainzeal has partily geared for Christchurch, employing people before they had the work and income, and this has tipped them over the edge.

No doubt the head-up-opposition-ass people will see it was business greed that lead to these job losses, even though the business went bust, when for a small pay cut employment could have continued and some job for slightly less pay always better than unemployment.

7/02/2013 9:01:46 a.m.

james wrote:

as usual in the construction industry the risk is carried by the subcontractors and workers history aways repeats as hartners collapsed,looseing jobs is hard enough but usually guys working with these companies are owed 10s thousands of dollars they need to pay there workers this will just ripple outwards.Risk to Reward ratio in consturction industry has been backwards for a long time ,some crook takes reward and passes risk down the food chain,a mirror of our western economies.

7/02/2013 8:28:20 a.m.

katubaldy wrote:

Thought so...highly intellectual Chinese businessman utilises US investors and an NZ construction company to build his dream projects in mainland China. Subsequently Mainzeal goes belly up just prior to the CHCH rebuild, thats tragic. Nothing to do with the govt,hopefully, but it doesn't look good and its terrible timing for them. Will be interesting to see what comes out in the wash....hope the receivers can salvage something to minimise the impact for the Mainzeal workers, subcontractors and creditors.

6/02/2013 10:11:47 p.m.

katubaldy wrote:

Don't like to speculate and make assumptions but there's more to it in this story. Why would Mainzeal go into receivership so close to the CHCH rebuild? And why did Shipley and the other independent directors resign from the Mainzeal Group the day before this announcement, after the Richina Pacific dealings came to light? Anyway the facts to date are another 400 jobs go by the way and add to that the roll on effects for the subcontractors and creditors. Makes it an outstanding start to February for National, 600 jobs, (including Oamaru) lost in the first week and after such an excellent Jan as well. Novopay slipped and face planted again over the midweek break in case teachers thought they were going to celebrate the country's national holiday. Situation normal all...(I'm sure you know the rest).

6/02/2013 9:00:43 p.m.

Fiddling while NZ goes under wrote:

Where's the economic recovery Mr Key? Another company closing, more job losses, more misery for ordinary families. "Brighter future"? Bad joke, Mr Key.

6/02/2013 3:34:30 p.m.

fmacskasy.wordpress.com wrote:

Cue: National to explain how this is going to help our economy? Oh wait, it's Labour's fault! Or the global financial crisis! Or the unemployed! Sunspots?