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then as now
Then as now – 1991 and 2011
THIS MONTH WE look back 30 years to 1991 and a mere decade to November 2011.
30 YEARS AGO THIS MONTH...
With a view to talking around rather than about the recessionary times the country was making its way out of, the November 1991
issue also included comment on the vagaries of prediction and pundits in particular.
The Editor quoted George Bernard Shaw: “If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion...” Fair comment, probably.
In terms of our industry, by late 1991, PlaceMakers’ 50/50 Joint Venture (JV) format was just a few months old. Back then, November 1991’s NZ Hardware Journal followed up on a small news story from the April 1991 issue headlined “PlaceMakers’ partnerships a reality”.
The intention in creating JVs was “to combine the individual service of a small owner-operated store with the unrivalled value of New Zealand’s largest chain of building suppliers”.
By September 1990, PlaceMakers had signalled its intentions to convert Store Managers into Owner-Operators with “a supportive financial package and back-end advantages”.
PlaceMakers’ initial plan was to have 50 JV stores within two years, the aim being to offer “a positive solution to successfully operating in today’s difficult
market conditions”. PlaceMakers’ GM at the
time, Keith Avery, went further: “PlaceMakers
needed to do something significantly different
to ensure we fully meet the changing needs of
consumers.”
Part of the Big
Idea was to take the administrative load off
operators and store
managers and allow them to be better retailers.
In February 1991, New Plymouth became the first JV store.
Its inaugural JV / owner-operator was Kevin McLaughlin, who had been the Manager since May 1989, and had “absolutely no regrets” about the change.
One of the next stores to become a PlaceMakers JV, in July 1991, was Riccarton, then the largest PlaceMakers in the country covering five acres and just 80+ staff and led by owner-operators Bob Sandford and Laurie Hay.
Fast forward now to 2021 and in its 40th year PlaceMakers’ model has changed again, from individual JV stores to a HUB model, as covered in these pages over the last year-plus.
Along with this step change has come several high-profile personnel changes, many of which we have already covered, although we hear there are some still to be formally announced...
PlaceMakers wasn’t alone in making changes 30 years ago, indeed our November 1991 issue also highlighted the opening of the Murray McLean-led Mitre 10 NZ’s first in a planned series of standalone M10 Gardener stores.
In late September 1991, Neil Ladbrook of Taupo’s Ladbrook Hardware opened Lakeland
M10 Gardener in Taupo.
It figures that the Taupo business has been recognised several times over the years by the cooperative for its green fingers.
already nine months into its new JV program. 30 years later, its new HUB structure has brought
changes.
In more recent times,
still owned by the Ladbrook
family but run by Craig and
Caroline Ladbrook, the
business became Mitre 10
MEGA Taupo and received
high honours in Mitre 10’s
and our own 2016 awards as
Retail Store of the Year (Up to 4000m2).
30 years ago, Ladbrook Hardware became the first M10 Gardener store. These days, as Mitre 10 MEGA Taupo, the Ladbrook family is still very much part of the cooperative and is regularly recognised as being among its highest performers.
As we reported 30 years ago, PlaceMakers was
10 YEARS AGO THIS MONTH...
In November 2011 we were talking recovery (again), with the volume and (to a lesser extent) value of August’s building consents both in the positive year on year for the first time in 12 months.
Despite some much looked for positivity around August’s increases, our running tally of residential consents shows the year to date still handily behind 2010 levels at 13,549 new dwellings, including apartments, worth $4.9 billion.
In 2021, in the August year to date, no less than 46,453 dwellings were consented, worth $19.7 billion...
10 years ago, we were also looking forward to the new Licensed Building Practitioner (LBP) regime coming into force early in 2012.
54 NZHJ | NOVEMBER 2021
MORE AT www.hardwarejournal.co.nz