Page 66 - HW December 2020

then as now
Then as now? December 2010
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IN OUR DECEMBER 2010 magazine we had popped over to
Sydney with the Hammer Hardware crew (remember how easy international travel used to be?) to be a fly on the wall at their 2010 conference (photos 1 & 2).
Hammer Chairman Bruce Roberts opened proceedings while Mitre 10 NZ CEO John Hartmann, having come onboard in March that year, took the opportunity to run through his background which included HD Supply and The Home Depot.
Citing the success of the US “small format” chains Ace Hardware and, ironically, True Value in competing alongside larger format stores, John emphasised the importance of Hammer within the Mitre10 family.
Later, Hammer Hardware GM Garry Latham gave an overview of the Hammer brand’s strengths and opportunities while Angela Percy ran through promotional activities.
Fast forward to 2020 and, 10 years later, Bruce and Coralie Roberts still own Hammer Hardware in Waipu, their business of some 20+ years.
Returning to the USA in 2013, John Hartmann left Mitre 10 NZ to head up True Value and in May this year became COO at Bed Bath & Beyond.
Garry Latham left Mitre 10 in 2012 and is now New Zealand Operations Manager of Storage King.
These days, Angela is an independent consultant. She left Mitre 10 after a five-year stint early in 2011 for the GM Marketing role at PlaceMakers and in recent times has been involved with Carters.
REMEMBER “GRUMPY GROWTH”?
In an end of year look at what lay ahead for our chosen industry it was clear that in 2010 Kiwis had been making businesses, retailers particularly, work hard for every dollar.
Over the last 18 months they’d been “reconsidering their financial position” and “clawing back their debt levels”.
Having said that, Kiwis had also showed themselves “willing to spend on some larger ticket items – as long as they are convinced of the value it brings them”, although this didn’t seem to have helped the hardware industry much.
Seeking a range of views from outside the industry, in the opinion of then ASB Chief Economist, Nick Tuffley, hardware had been “knocked around quite a lot” during the big downturn, adding that
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the upturn so far had been “pretty weak”.
ANZ Chief Economist at the time was Cameron Bagrie, who
labelled the NZ economy “schizophrenic”, and injected a dose of realism with: “You don’t get out of a global credit crisis in the space of two years.”
His outlook? “The environment going forward is about hard yakka and getting back to basics: and to make a buck you’re going to have to work a lot harder.
“We’re getting growth all right, but there’s not much money in it.
“In terms of getting the horse back in front of the cart, which is about getting New Zealand a bit of backbone to support our spending habits, I think that’s a 5-10 year journey.
And the good news?
“Don’t beat yourself up for the tough times... The housing sector will recover – it will just take a little bit of time,” advised Cameron.
Given 2019-2020’s record level of residential consents, with their opinion being that in 2010 we needed 23,000 residential consents annually just to stand still, back then our economists believed we would struggle to see a return to the heady days of 25,000 a year.
Cameron Bagrie: “Building consents are going to pick up but I think we need to realise that there’s a new reality here in terms of where building consent are going to settle over the next five years.
“I think we’ll get back to 20,000 [new home starts], I don’t think we’ll get back to 25,000...”
BNZ’s Chief Economist Tony Alexander talked of the outlook being “extremely uncertain”: “We don’t know precisely which way it’s going to go because we don’t know how attitudes are going to change.
“But, fundamentally, right now, not enough housing is getting built and the population is continuing to grow...”
Then as now... See you all in 2021!
64 NZHJ | DECEMBER 2020/JANUARY 2021
MORE AT www.hardwarejournal.co.nz