Page 42 - HW FEBRUARY 2022

then as now
TUMU ITM’s new Hastings branch made it six for Hawkes Bay back in 2012.
manager at Mitre 10 MEGA in Palmy North.
Still with TUMU, Paul is now ITM
Business Partner, while Jamie (incidentally
also 2012 Hardware Journal NZ Young Retailer of the Year) is still Manager at Napier but also a shareholder.
CORPORATE CHANGES IN FEB 2012
Staying in Hawkes Bay but moving from co-op to corporate now, from February 2012 Blackwoods Paykels and Protector Safety would come under a single new banner – Blackwoods Protector.
The first store to wear the new name and livery was Blackwoods Protector Hastings, when Blackwoods Paykels and Protector Safety Hastings relocated to a single new purpose- built shop on Omahu Road.
Four years later, in 2016, Blackwoods Protector and Wesfarmers Industrial & Safety division stablemates NZ Safety and Packaging House would merge into the single business we see today – NZ Safety Blackwoods with its 30 Trade centres.
Staying with corporates, by early 2012, Carters had invested several million dollars on “world class” manufacturing equipment for its five largest frame & truss manufacturing plants.
Richard Rozbicki was Carters’ National Manufacturing Manager at the time but would move on to become National Manufacturing Manager at PlaceMakers and since 2020 has been with Thomsons ITM as CEO.
Talking of PlaceMakers, natural disasters notwithstanding, 2012 was another big year for the high performing PlaceMakers Riccarton.
Indeed, Grant Close, Riccarton’s JV Partner since 2000, was named our 2011 Retailer of the Year, while Retail Manager Fraser Costley (still listed as Riccarton’s Retail Sales Manager) was adjudged 2011’s Young Retailer of the Year and the store as a whole also took out Trade Store of the Year!
A dozen years after taking up the Riccarton JV, Grant talked to us at length in the February 2012 magazine
about the need to constantly review the business and adapt to change: “This is a never-ending process, and that’s what makes the game so exciting.”
Taking of change, in September 2020, with the closure of the Antigua Street branch, and having already developed a close working relationship for some years, PlaceMakers Cranford St, Hornby, Kaiapoi
and Riccarton formally became “PlaceMakers Christchurch” – the first of a new hub model – and would operate as a single unit.
And Grant Close became the first Hub Manager under a new mixed ownership model (i.e. not 100% owner by Fletcher Building), with leadership “having skin in the game” rather than a strictly JV set-up, followed by similar set-ups around the country.
SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE...
With ongoing discussion of the myriad challenges brought about by today’s pandemic-affected construction boom top of mind, it’s easy to forget that the building industry 10 years ago was not such a frantic place.
In February 2012, referring to a special economic report commissioned by the Construction Strategy Group from PWC, Building Industry Federation Chief Executive Bruce Kohn (now retired), said merchants and materials suppliers had been through “tough times in the recessionary conditions of the past three years” and were looking forward to the report’s prediction of a boost from the recovery construction in Canterbury, leaky building remediation and new home construction.
Looking for action from the recently elected National Government led by John Key, Bruce also highlighted that the PWC report drew particular attention to the need for fresh Government policies to ensure that the next “boom” would not be followed by an equally spectacular “bust”.
“Boom or bust cycles have bedevilled the industry for decades,” he said at the time. “The PWC report points out means of smoothing these economic cycles and shows the potential for training up new industry recruits to help the sector deal with higher demand for skilled tradesmen.”
10 years later, hopefully spurred along by the latest reforms in vocational education, training is attracting increasing numbers but we’re still facing a skills shortage, a situation that’s further exacerbated by the borders being closed.
And some are predicting if not a “bust’ then at least some moderation of the current “boom” made inevitable by a simple lack of builders...
Then as now...
From JV operation to Hub format, PlaceMakers Riccarton remains one of the most successful branches in the country.
40 NZHJ | FEBRUARY 2022
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