Building firm Maven pulls plug
Christchurch-based Maven Interiors, also called M-Int, has been placed into liquidation by owner Allan Tribble leaving the fate of about 60 mainly immigrant workers up in the air.
The collapse comes as unrelated Auckland construction firm Ebert went under owing tens of millions of dollars. Industry consultants blame thin margins and rising industry costs.
Tribble and liquidator Andrew Oorschot have yet to respond to inquiries about the fate of other staff in Auckland and Dunedin. The firm’s website is gone, other social media references expunged, and anyone ringing the firm encounters an answer phone message saying the company is in liquidation.
The workers walked off their main job at the QEII site in east Christchurch where construction company Southbase is the main contractor building the new Shirley Boys’ and Avonside Girls’ High Schools.
Chief executive Quin Henderson said Southbase would take on several of the tradesmen who have been working on on the QEII site. ‘‘We’re working our way through how we will employ them but they’re still on site and it won’t affect the schedule,’’ Henderson said. A recent report by property consultancy Rider Levett Bucknall highlighted construction cost inflation – estimated to rise to about 4.6 per cent in early 2019 – making it difficult for firms to judge the margins they needed to remain viable.
John Tookey, Professor of Construction Management at AUT, said commercial construction firms faced fierce competition when bidding for work and often had to taken on high risk.
Peter Silcock, chief executive at CCNZ, has warned that razorthin margins were risky for the public as well as industry. ‘‘Cutting costs leads to poor-quality infrastructure.’’
Some in the industry have advised construction firms seek margins of 8 per cent rather than the more common 4-5 per cent.
Maven had also been involved in other high-profile earthquake recovery projects including the Canterbury District Health Board’s $445 million acute services building, and Justice and Emergency precinct, and the Novotel Hotel at Christchurch Airport. The plasterboard fixing company was set up by Tribble in
2012, and his wife, Hayley, was a director until she resigned on June 22, three weeks before the liquidation.
Allan Tribble is currently president of the Association of Wall and Ceiling Industries (AWCI) and is described as an ‘‘experienced managing director with a demonstrated history of working in the construction industry . . . strong business development professional with a Bachelor of Construction focused in Quantity Surveying from Unitec Institute of Technology’’.
The founder of Ebert Construction says its collapse is sad for the family name.
The large construction company was put into receivership yesterday, with PwC receivers saying Ebert owed ‘‘tens of millions’’ of dollars, largely resulting from poorly performing projects in Auckland.
Workers and contractors arrived at Ebert sites around the country yesterday to find themselves locked out with no access to their tools.
Ebert founder Dennis Ebert said he was sorry to see the company in receivership. ‘‘It’s really sad for the family name to be attached to that. It’s just one of these unfortunate things.’’
He said he retired in 2011 and had not had any association with the company since then.
‘‘I’m sorry that it’s all happened. I can’t do a thing. It’s just my name there, that’s all.’’
Company records show Ebert retired as a director in 2015 and ceased being a shareholder in 2004. Beatrice Ebert, who lives at the same address as Dennis Ebert, is still a shareholder.
The company was founded by managing director Kelvin Hale and Dennis Ebert, and was incorporated in 1999.
Yesterday, Ebert workers were reportedly given a letter confirming the receivership.
Receiver John Fisk, of PwC, could not quantify the debt involved but said it would be ‘‘in the tens of millions’’.
PwC was appointed after the company’s board made a request to its bank, the receiver said.
Ebert was working on 15 developments, including the Indian High Commission’s new headquarters in Wellington, the Union Green apartment project in Auckland, a unit at Middlemore Hospital and a new commercial building for Premier in Carterton.
Ebert also had two projects in the pipeline for dairy processor Synlait Milk: a powder manufacturing site in Pokeno; and Synlait Dunsandel, a liquid dairy packaging facility. Both were expected to be complete in 2020.
Farhad Moinfar, a director of Myland Partners which is developing Union Green, said the news had come as a surprise. ‘‘We are taking advice and working through the implications.’’
Fisk would not say which projects were underperforming, but said Ebert’s directors had acted quickly after receiving new information last week.
Workers had been paid up to July 31 and would be paid for every day they were available afterwards, but work would stop to give the receivers time to formulate a plan, Fisk said.
‘‘We’ll contact the principals or the developers that Ebert is working for and try and get some clarity on where each of those contracts will go, in terms of whether Ebert can finish the work or whether the site’s handed over to someone else, or whatever other options there are to complete the sites.’’
There were about 20 workers locked out of Ebert’s Union St offices in Auckland yesterday.
One worker said he had another job lined up but could not go without getting his tools.
Tower Cranes NZ founder Julian Oxborough said his crane was on the Union St construction site.
Oxborough said he had three jobs with Ebert Construction and had just put up a crane in Pokeno.
An Ebert contractor said yesterday he first heard about the receivership at 7am and had been trying to get his workers’ tools.
Calls to Ebert’s Wellington phone number yesterday were disconnected.
A staff member at its Auckland office said the company ‘‘was not taking calls’’ and the construction firm’s Facebook page appears to have been taken down.
Master Builders chief executive David Kelly said that although Ebert’s receivership came as a surprise, there had been growing concerns of the industry facing greater challenges in recent years.
‘‘It’s bad news for everyone – the employees, subcontractors and clients. Everyone loses out.’’
Kelly said some of the ‘‘worrying trends’’ were a combination of contractors taking on risk they did not fully understand and also a shortage of subcontractors in a ‘‘booming’’ industry.
‘‘There used to be a lot of transparency in terms of contracts. But now we’re seeing lengthy special conditions in contracts. These contractors are taking on liabilities they don’t fully understand. For instance, if a contractor falls over they’re not covered at all.
‘‘In a booming economy it’s hard to get subcontractors and if you take on too much work that can have a knock-on effect and snowball very quickly.’’
‘‘I’m sorry that it’s all happened. I can’t do a thing. It’s just my name there, that’s all.’’ Dennis Ebert, above