Matrix Homes boss ‘tried to save business’

CEO explains what went wrong with prefabricated house-building firm

The chief of a prefabricated home-building company now in receivership tried desperately to save the business but debts mounted to around $2 million, he said.

Sean Murrie, chief executive and a director of Trent ham head quartered Matrix Homes, spoke out about reasons for the failure, citing lack of orders and slow planning regime changes.

“I’m gutted. I did everything I could to stop it happening, working very hard for a very long time. I could not secure the investment I needed. It was a comparatively minor amount and the shareholders did all they could,” Murrie said.

Asked how much creditors were owed, he said: “It would be more than $2m, there’s no chance of it being as high as $3m.”

Receivers appointed on July 18 are BDO Wellington’s Iain Shephard and Jessica Kellow. The first report is yet to be issued.

Murrie said Matrix built around 100 homes during its three-year trading life. The factory was opened in February 2015 by the then Finance Minister Bill English.

Asked who tipped the business into receivership, he said: “I did it. I had to. We could not continue to trade without being sure we could fund it.”

He expressed concern about lack of orders and speed to enable the homes to be trucked to sites, but stressed he was not pointing the finger at anyone in particular.

“It’s a real shame. The rules were stacked against what we were doing. It’s just taken too long. The Unitary Plan should have been done ages ago. I’m not trying to blame anyone for anything. It’s just these things should have been quicker,” Murrie said.

He also cited a lack of Housing NZ Corp orders and said although there were protracted discussions about buying stock, no orders materialised. “They kept delaying and delaying and delaying and never bought one.

“The Government has got to play its part if they’re going to get serious about getting housing built,” Murrie said.

The real shame about the Matrix receivership was that with KiwiBuild, times had never been better potentially for the prefab industry, Murrie said.

Asked what went wrong, Murrie said: “Just being too ahead of the curve. Prefab now is quite well accepted. But it wasn’t a few years ago and the developers didn’t accept it. This has all changed recently.

“Before the [Auckland] Unitary Plan, if anyone had a section, they wanted to put a big house on it. Rules encouraged bigger houses. We’re just not in the big-house market. We’re in affordable housing. Developers were not interested in small houses.”

In 2015, Matrix said it was asking $89,000 for a 51sq m, one-bedroom home, $99,000 for a 70sq m twobedroom place, $195,000 for 140sq m four-bedroom two-bathrooms homes but transport costs were an extra $10,000 in Wellington and $20,000 in Auckland.

Murrie said when Matrix was launched he envisaged a second factory if there was strong demand in Auckland.