Page 52 - HW October 2020 NEW

glues, sealants & adhesives
Smith suggests the company will be replacing one of its anchoring products.
“It’s pretty much an evolution of the range,” he says.
“Our staple products continue to do very well. Sika SMS is in 750 merchants around the country and sometimes you wonder where it all goes!
“The numbers for September are ahead of last year, so, at the moment, it’s pretty buoyant.
“There’s a lot of work going on, but the feedback we’re getting is that the plans are starting to slow up past November, where it’s looking a bit lean.”
TRAINING PUT ON HOLD
Passive fire protection remains a bright spot which Tony Smith expects will continue to grow, especially as we build more apartments.
However, opportunities to market Sika’s wares in this space have been few and far between in the last few months.
“We planned for all of our trade shows, expos, Master Builder conference, Certified Builder conference, expecting them to be all about passive fire protection, and all were cancelled apart from a few roadshows that got over the line.
“So a lot of the marketing work around passive fire and the exposure to customers didn’t happen this year.
“We’re in the type of business where you need to be in front of customers and talking to them and showing them what’s new and offering training advice and so on.”
In this respect, Tony and his Sika team, among others, will be looking forward to the whole country entering Alert Level 1...
Paul O’Reilly says the market for fire and acoustic sealants for both internal and external is also “relatively good” for Bostik. “There’s definitely potential growth there for us. It’s one of
those markets that you have to commit to, rather than dabbling half-heartedly.
“You have to have all the approvals to be in the market, meet the AU and NZ fire and acoustic standards and it’s relatively expensive to get the testing done.
“You have to provide a lot of information to architects and fire engineers to get your product specified.
“It’s quite a time-intensive process but once an architect is familiar with the product, they tend to respecify it, and quote for it on other jobs.”
WHERE TO FROM HERE?
Where to now for the category overall? In Melanie Reid’s opinion, how things pan out may be very different for different parts of the market.
“DIY is very strong at the moment, and this paint season will possibly be strong [but] then we’re not sure beyond that.
“We’re quite positive about residential; the group housing businesses and the builders have got good full books that will probably see us go well into Q1 and Q2.
“Commercial space is a bit of unknown with less retail development, and fewer hotel and tourism projects, but you will see some government spend around education and potentially hospitals.
“And the retailers are going well and they’re banking the wins they’ve got at the moment.”
Tony Smith, however, says feedback from the retailers has been mixed: “A number of the larger retailers are now thinking there’s likely to be a drop-off heading into next year. They’re uncertain as to how it’s going to pan out.
“There’s no doubt some of the forecasts are now looking slightly better than they were a few months ago but I still think we’re looking at an industry that’s going to slow down.
“Infometrics’ numbers are still pointing down, we know of major projects that have been put on hold and I don’t know why someone would want to build an office block at the moment,” says Tony candidly.
Paul O’Reilly concludes no-one really knows what the impact of all this is going to be: “A lot of people who were expecting the last quarter of this year to be bad are now thinking it might be next year when things slow up a little bit.”
Thanks to our glues & sealants pundits for the input, much appreciated, despite the seeming variety of viewpoints.
It just goes to show that if you’re looking for some certainty right now, you are likely going to be disappointed...
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50 NZHJ | OCTOBER 2020
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