Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Bruce Hassall, chair of your company. On behalf of the board, it is my pleasure to welcome you to Fletcher Building's 2023 annual shareholders' meeting. Today's meeting is being held both in person and online, online via the Computershare online meeting platform.
We welcome our shareholders, proxies, and guests, both here in the room and joining online. Before we start the formal business of the meeting, I'd like to remind people in the room to ensure their mobile phones are silent. In the unlikely event of an emergency, or if we need to evacuate the building, please leave by the nearest safe exit as directed by staff and security. Assembly is on Walters Road, which is behind us.
As a quorum is present, and due notice of this meeting has been given, I declare the meeting duly constituted and open for business. I will now introduce my fellow directors. On my right, your left, starting from the far end, is Peter Crowley, Martin Brydon, Cathy Quinn. On my left, from the far end along, we have Sandra Dodds, Doug McKay, Rob McDonald, Barbara Chapman.
Your CEO, Ross Taylor, is seated on my immediate left, and Company Secretary Andrew Clarke is seated to my right. We also have in attendance members of our leadership team and our auditors, EY. Moving on to the agenda. Today's meeting will commence with addresses from me as chair and from Ross Taylor, CEO. We'll then move on to the resolutions that are outlined in the notice of meeting. The resolutions will be decided by poll.
Questions on a resolution will be dealt with before they are voted on. At the conclusion of the formal business, we'll then take the opportunity for your general questions from the floor and online. For those attending online, you can start submitting your questions now. Please note that questions will be moderated to avoid repetition and to summarize lengthy questions.
We won't address questions that, in my opinion, are not reasonable in the context of this meeting or that repeat previous questions and do not allow all shareholders a fair chance to have their questions heard. Thank you also to the shareholders who have submitted their questions in advance. Ross and I will speak to a number of these in our addresses. Finally, if for some reason we don't have the opportunity to answer your question, we will answer them in due course via email.
At the conclusion of the meeting, we invite you to stay and enjoy some light refreshments over there. On behalf of the board, I'm pleased to report that in FY 2023, Fletcher Building delivered strong underlying earnings of NZD 798 million and a strong EBIT margin of 9.4%. This performance was well ahead of the prior year and was achieved despite a slowing residential market and disruption from severe weather events, which we all know about.
We believe that it reflects the significant operational improvements made in the business in recent years. I acknowledge it was disappointing that we needed to book additional fire-related provisions on the New Zealand International Convention Centre in the year. These were the main reason for the drop in our net earnings after tax to NZD 235 million for the year.
I'll speak further to the legacy construction projects, as well as the Western Australia plumbing matter later in my address. On the dividend, the board paid total dividends of NZD 0.34 per share for the financial year. This reflects a solid FY 2023 earnings result, while also having regard to the expected cash flow impact of the legacy construction projects through FY 2024.
The board remains committed to driving strong outcomes across a range of ESG measures and continuing to drive a performance culture. As with our financial performance, we've also made progress on our key non-financial measures and outcomes during the year. We continue to make our workplace safer. Protect, our multi-year safety program, produced further improvements with a TRIFR of 3.1, which is world-class, a 12% reduction on last year.
This translated to 90% or 903 of our sites being injury-free for the entire year. On sustainability, we continue to make very good progress on reducing our carbon emissions, which are down 16% from our 2018 base levels. Service performance to our customers also improved through the year, and our net promoter score increased to an average of 40.
This reflects ongoing improvements in on-time deliveries, stock availability, and online offerings. Importantly, we also saw our overall employee engagement increase to a net promoter score of 26. Whilst this improvement was pleasing, this result only places us in the median for global organizations, so we have more work to do if we are going to achieve global best-in-class levels of 40 and above. Turning to the Western Australian plumbing matter.
I'd like first to acknowledge the impact and distress on homeowners from the plumbing failures that are occurring. I wish to assure our shareholders and all our stakeholders that the board is taking this matter very seriously. We have a dedicated board committee in place, which provides strong oversight on the developing matters.
The company's approach is focused on three aspects: First, we have put in place an interim NZD 15 million fund to support builders and plumbers to repair leaks and any associated damage for homeowners, while causation of the plumbing failures is better understood.
We've undertaken detailed product testing with global experts and gathered evidence on installation practices from hundreds of homes. To date, we have not found fault with our product, but we have kept and will keep an open mind. For its part, Fletcher Building is committed to find an industry solution.
A proportionate and evidence-based solution is in everyone's interest, especially those homeowners who have been affected. Ross will build on this further in his address. At this point, I'd like to reflect on how the company has evolved over the past six years or so since the current board was appointed.
In 2018, our underlying businesses in New Zealand had strong market positions, but they had been under-invested in and margins were on the decline. A key reason for this was our international business, which was capital hungry, spread across 30 countries, and so stretched both our balance sheet and board and management attention.
Our businesses in Australia were contributing a good proportion of revenue, but close to nil margins. They made no money. They were reporting into three separate operating divisions, which served to mask the underperformance across many operational dimensions.
Meanwhile, construction had assembled an order book that was overweight and higher risk, lower margin projects, which took up a disproportionate amount of board and management time as issues arose. Of further concern was that our non-financial metrics were below par. While we had a safety program in place, an embedded safety culture did not exist in the company.
We also had no carbon reduction plans, and we weren't putting the right focus on our customers or our people. In response to the situation, we took decisive action to firstly stabilize the company. We appointed a new CEO capable of handling the enormous task ahead.
We completed a full board refresh and implemented more rigorous governance protocols. We oversaw a capital raise and moved to divest the international business with the implementation of a new strategy focused on New Zealand and Australia.
In combination, the business was refocused and the balance sheet strengthened. We successfully achieved much of this through 2018 and 2019, but we knew we had much more to do beyond that. This included dealing with the legacy issues and repositioning the go-forward business, which I'll cover off on the following slides.
The legacy construction projects have been a major undertaking. We started with around 80 legacy projects. These were brought into the group when it had a different tolerance for risk and winning construction work prior to 2017. There are now three projects left to complete, which Ross will provide further details on. The board and management share the frustration of our shareholders that these legacy projects have taken longer and have cost more to complete than planned.
Ongoing COVID lockdowns and the fire at NZICC added complexity to the tail legacy projects and have made it much harder. We accept that there are remaining risks to manage on these projects. These matters are a major focus of the board, with regular review of management progress in place.
At the same time, we've also had to focus on building a better construction business for the future rather than clearing up the past problems. We made the decision to exit the vertical building sector, and our teams have made excellent progress on lifting the skills, operating disciplines, and governance across all the construction businesses. The best evidence of the success of this is a rebuilt forward order book with the right risk profile, which is low and margins.
The final part of the board's strategy over the past five to six years was to reposition the go-forward business to deliver improved performance and growth. Combined with the issues in construction, we had a challenged Australian business, which was dragging down our overall profitability and margins.
We had a set of New Zealand assets with good market positions, but needing investment and improved operating disciplines. This slide shows the group EBIT and margin performance over time. As we've taken the necessary actions, the operational gains we have made over the past six years have been in a few key areas. Firstly, cost efficiency, getting sharper on our products and the segments where we participate, and ensuring our pricing is both well controlled and linked to the value we deliver. In addition, we have been focused on investing for the future.
We are close to completing the new NZD 400 million wallboards plant. This future-proof is one of our most valuable assets, and we have a mature program of mainly organic growth projects underway. Our strategic focus on the New Zealand and Australian geographies has enabled us to both uncover and execute on these opportunities. Ross will touch on them more in a moment.
Our approach to non-financial performance has been, in many ways, similar to the financials. In each of the areas of safety, sustainability, customer, and engagement with our people, and approach has been to understand what is best-in-class performance, what does it look like? And the operating disciplines needed to achieve it.
We then hold ourselves to account against these standards. Pleasingly, progress on these over the past five years has been positive, and particularly on safety and sustainability.
We recognize that we need to get more consistent and move closer to best-in-class across our customer experience and the capability and engagement of our people. To summarize, the past six years has seen a significant turnaround of Fletcher Building. The company has been stabilized, and we pursued a consistent strategy focused on our home markets in New Zealand and Australia.
We have, we have almost completed the 80 legacy construction projects and will be through the final three by the end of next year. This does not take away from the board's disappointment at the additional fire-related provisions on the convention center booked in FY 2023. Equally, we are cognizant of the risks that still exist as we complete the final legacy projects, and we are highly focused on managing these and on resolving the West Australian plumbing issues in a satisfactory way.
Overall, though, over the past six years, the financial and non-financial metrics of Fletcher Building have improved significantly, and we believe the go-forward position is well-positioned for performance and growth over the medium term. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank our management team and all of our 15,000 people for their considerable efforts over this period.
In particular, over this period, the board is very proud of the work that you have done and continue to do to improve Fletcher Building and position it well for the long term. I'd now like to pass to Ross for his address. Ross, over to you.
Tēnā koe, Bruce. Tēnā koutou, katoa, kia huihui mai nei. Thanks, Bruce, and I'd also like to add my welcome to those joining our shareholder meeting today, both here in the room and online. The Fletcher Building businesses are performing well. They are also nicely positioned to navigate the softer markets over the next year or so, and then to grow again from there.
As Bruce has covered the recent results in some detail, I'll just make a few points on the 2023 financial year. Our overall margins increased nicely to 9.4%, and pleasingly, the Australian division delivered 6% margins. Our progress in achieving a world-class safety culture and performance levels continues, and it's nice to see this being reflected in lower injury rates across all of our businesses.
We remain confident that there's more financial performance upside in the medium term, but this is going to be driven by getting our people fully engaged, genuinely passionate about what we do, and really focused on our customers. Against this backdrop, it was pleasing to see improvements across both our customer and people metrics through the year. A particular call-out was the engagement of our top 300 leaders.
This now sits at an industry-leading ENPS score of 50, and this sets us up really well to achieve the further overall performance improvements we're looking for into the future. We continue to take a longer-term view and are actively investing in a number of significant growth opportunities, and as we flagged previously, we've now committed around NZD 800 million of capital to these. We show on the slide a few examples of the investments we're making in New Zealand.
These are across timber, insulation, automation in our Frame and Truss plant, and on the broader circular economy. We expect these investments to hit their full earnings run rate in the 2027 financial year, and to deliver over NZD 120 million per annum of extra profits to our bottom line from then on. Pleasingly, we're on track to finish the physical works on the final three construction legacy projects through the 2024 calendar year.
The Pūhoi to Warkworth Motorway was opened in June this year, and if you haven't driven out in it yet, you should go out and do so. It's a lovely piece of infrastructure to drive along. The final works will be completed in the second quarter of 2024, and it'll be a matter of working through the major claims on the project with Waka Kotahi.
We've now completed and handed over all the car park levels on the convention center. We expect the hotel to be complete in December and the balance of the project by the end of 2024. As we noted in our results presentation in August, there continues to be some cost risk to manage as we complete these projects.
We also need to secure claims and insurance recoveries and manage any wash-up issues that may arise to hold our current provisions. Resolutions of the claims and recoveries, particularly on the convention center and Pūhoi to Warkworth projects, is likely to take until the end of the 2025 calendar year.
On Wellington Airport car parks, we're working with the airport to determine an agreed remediation, but any costs we decide to take in that regard are not covered by the present provisions.
There are no material updates on the detailed presentation I gave on the Western Australian plumbing issue two weeks ago. For those of you that didn't see this and are interested in it, the full presentation and webcast are available on the Fletcher Building website in the Online Investor Centre.
As Bruce outlined, we continue to use the NZD 15 million interim fund put in place early this year to allow us to support the industry and homeowners while causation of the plumbing failures is better understood. We also continue to work with the industry and regulators to develop an effective solution. Our evidence, which is a combination of extensive testing of the pipes and a comprehensive review of the leaks that are occurring in the home, points to installation as the failure.
Repair scenarios built on this evidence suggest an overall industry cost to repair these leaks are between NZD 50 million-NZD 100 million. At this stage, we've not made any provisions to contribute to this repair bill. Starting with our New Zealand and materials distribution businesses, I'll talk through the trading conditions we're seeing so far in this financial year.
The infrastructure and non-residential sectors remain robust, but the residential sector volumes are around 5% softer than our prior guidance. This puts them down around 25% from the peak we saw in late 2021. Our market shares are stable, and we're seeing solid pricing in our materials business, but strong price competition in the merchant distribution channel. As such, our profit for these businesses are tracking slightly behind our previous expectations.
In Australia, the division is performing well, and we expect profits in the first half of the year to be broadly in line with last year, despite a slightly softer market. Encouragingly, we're seeing green shoots in the residential house sale market in our residential development division. So far this year, house sales are tracking well.
They're averaging around 20-25 per week, and house prices have stabilized and are now starting to trend up slightly. If this momentum in sales continues, there could be upside to our prior 700-800 unit sale target for the financial year. We continue to expect profit margins to be slightly below the 15% through the year and profits to be weighted to the second half due to the profile of settlements.
This market trend is a positive for our New Zealand and material distribution businesses, as increased activity across the residential end market will ultimately flow into the volumes across these businesses. In construction, the work outlook in the market remains very solid, and our order book remains strong. A slower start to key projects will see our profits weighted to the second half of this financial year.
The outlook for our trading cash flows continues to look robust, and our balance sheet remains well-positioned. As previously guided, we expect leverage to move to the upper end of our 1-2 times range, which still has material headroom to our banking covenants. We have NZD 2.8 billion of debt facilities in place, and this ensures we'll maintain healthy levels of liquidity through this year and beyond.
And we now have a Moody's credit rating in place at Baa2 stable. All these things leave us well-positioned for the future. We're getting close to having the legacy construction projects in our rearview mirror. We're well-positioned to perform through the cycle and then to drive both further performance improvements and upside volumes when the cycle turns.
We're very advanced on our NZD 800 million of committed growth projects, which we're confident will be delivered well and set us up for significant extra earnings in the next 2-3 years. And there remain plenty of other growth opportunities which we can take advantage of once we have a firmer sense of when the cycle is returning to growth. Our improvement aspirations extend beyond just the economics of the business, and we also have ambitious targets across our non-financial outcomes as we look forward.
We're earnestly working towards being injury-free as an organization. We want to continue to lead our sector in sustainability by decarbonizing ahead of the competition, having the most sustainable products, and being heavily involved in the circular economy.
We want to provide products and services to our customers that are at global, best-in-class levels, and we want to have a diverse, talented, and highly engaged workforce that just love being part of Fletcher Building.
We are well advanced across all of the key areas that will make Fletcher Building a great company and provide exciting outcomes for Fletcher Building's people, customers, and shareholders. I'll now hand back to Bruce to continue with the balance of the meeting.
Thanks, Ross. I'll now move on to the formal business of the meeting, which is to vote on the resolutions outlined in the notice of meeting sent to all shareholders in September. All resolutions are ordinary resolutions. To be passed, they require the approval of a simple majority of the votes of those shareholders entitled to vote and who vote on the resolution.
I'm advised at the beginning of the meeting that we will vote on the resolutions by way of a poll. Any undirected proxy votes given to the chair of the meeting or any director will be voted in favor of the resolutions. Any directed proxies given by the shareholder will automatically be cast as directed. For eligible online attendees, voting on the resolutions is now open, and you can vote at any time until I declare the voting closed.
For shareholders and proxies in attendance in the meeting, I'll invite you to place your completed and signed voting proxy form in one of the ballot boxes, which will be passed around the room after all the resolutions have been introduced to the meeting. If anyone in the room is unsure how to complete the voting form, I invite you to go back to the registration desk, where someone will be able to help you.
I will now turn to the resolutions. As announced on the eleventh of October, resolution six, which related to proposed increase in the aggregate pool of funds available for directors' remuneration, was withdrawn. The resolution was withdrawn because it became clear during shareholder engagement that some shareholders considered their remuneration pool should not be adjusted until it was necessary.
On matters relating to its own remuneration, the board prefers a clearer mandate, and as such, resolution six of the notice of meeting will not be considered as an item of business at this meeting. Turning to the first resolution, as it concerns myself, I will hand over to Rob McDonald to conduct the resolution.
Thank you, Bruce. Kia ora. It is now my pleasure to move that Bruce Hassall be re-elected as a director of the company. Bruce was appointed to the board on the first of March 2017. He is a member of the Nominations Committee and the People and Remuneration Committee, and is considered by the board to be an independent director.
His credentials are outlined in the explanatory notes to the notice of meeting. The board unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of the re-election of Bruce Hassall. I now extend to Bruce the opportunity to speak about his re-election before we proceed to discussion on the resolution. Bruce?
Thank you, Rob. Tēnā koutou katoa. It is my pleasure to seek your support for re-election as a director of the Fletcher Building Board. I joined the board six years ago, and as I outlined in my earlier address, it has been challenging. But I'm very proud that this board and management have continued to persevere to remediate the issues that we all found when we joined the company back in 2017 and 2018.
Throughout my tenure to date, the board has been disciplined on governance and resolutely focused on sorting out the construction predicament we all encountered. The subsequent NZICC fire only added to that challenge. But we divested our international group, Formica and RTG, for a good price. As a board, we responded quickly and made some tough decisions through the COVID disruptions.
We were honest on the performance of our Australian business and made the hard calls. As you have heard, they've delivered a much improved performance in FY 2023, and the core New Zealand business delivered a very strong performance in FY 2023 as well. During my tenure, we've also focused on driving non-financial metrics, and the group overall is on the right path for delivering on the stretch targets we have in place, but there's more to do.
As I've said, we're nearly there on completing all our legacy construction contracts, but it's been very hard on shareholders, and it is clearly impacting our share price. The board acknowledges and understands the frustrations, but we have no other choice but to tough it out, but we're nearly there.
We will finish the work on the New Zealand Convention Centre, as Ross said, in late 2024. The Western Australian pipes issue is disappointing. I really empathize with homeowners and reiterate our commitment to work with the industry and help develop a submission, a solution to the problem. We have reset the company and have growth initiatives in place, investing in the heart of our New Zealand businesses.
Today, our new wallboards plant at Tauriko, delivered under budget and ahead of time, is weeks away from being fully operational. It's a world-class facility, and I'm very proud of that achievement. It's a credit to everyone involved in the project. We are increasingly regarded as leading from the front across safety, customer, community investment, and emissions reduction. These things don't happen by accident.
You need a clear strategy and then relentlessly focus on executing with great people. I look forward to the opportunity to continue to drive your company forward and ensure that Fletcher Building realizes its full potential. Thank you for your ongoing support.
Thank you, Bruce. I now invite discussion on the resolution. Are there any questions that shareholders would like to ask Bruce Hassell? If you're in the room, I invite you to raise your hand and a microphone will be handed to you. Before you ask your question, please state your name. Are there any questions in the room for Bruce? There does not appear to be. Are there any questions online?
There appears to be... No further questions online.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, Rob. It's now my pleasure to move that Barbara Chapman be re-elected as a director of the company. Barbara was appointed to the board on one September, two thousand and eighteen. She is chair of the People and Remuneration Committee, and a member of the Nominations Committee.
The board has agreed that she is an independent director. Her credentials are outlined in the explanatory notes to the notice of meeting. The board unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of her re-election. I now extend to Barbara the opportunity to address the meeting in support of her re-election. Barbara?
Ngā mihi, Bruce. Tena koutou katoa. Ko Barbara Chapman toku ingoa, kaiwhakahaere o te Poari of Fletcher Building. I'm delighted to be here today, and thank you for the opportunity to present myself for re-election. As your director, I bring to the board experience from my time as the former CEO of ASB Bank here in New Zealand, as well as experience in Australia from my time on the executive team at the Commonwealth Bank.
I currently serve on the boards of the Bank of New Zealand and the New Zealand Initiative, and am the chair of NZME and Genesis Energy Limited. These organizations enable me to see issues and trends across many sectors in New Zealand, which provides valuable insights into how New Zealand is traveling and how that might apply to Fletcher Building. You should rightly challenge what every director brings to the table.
In the three years since my last election, my focus has continued to be on supporting and challenging management to enhance our customer experience, prioritize our digital agenda, drive for improvements in leadership, diversity, and inclusion, and drive for strong business performance.
I know we must compete and execute well in all our chosen markets to deliver the performance our shareholders expect, and that has been my focus. As a director, and in my role as the chair of the People and Remuneration Committee, I take a wide-angled view of the performance of our business and how that should be reflected in the remuneration of our people, and in particular, in the incentives that they earn.
Over the past few years, we have provided you with enhanced disclosures to give you that clear line of sight into how executive performance is aligned with commercial outcomes, and how we consider matters such as safety, risk, and ESG considerations in our balanced scorecard approach.
As a board, we are supporting the management team's strategy to digitally transform the business, and I have a particular interest in this. The Digital at Fletcher program is a significant strategic investment to help us put the right technology and processes in place, so that we can understand and serve our customers better and earn more of their business. I'm also proud to have endorsed the company's ambitious program for growth, with a committed investment of more than NZD 800 million to date.
You will have heard about our significant investments in the Winstone Wallboards facility in the Bay of Plenty, along with our investments in Waipapa Pine, Laminex, and Comfortech. It's certainly pleasing to see these growth initiatives come to life and to progress to a point where they will deliver strong shareholder value well into the future.
Thank you again for the opportunity to present myself for re-election today. You can be assured that I'm committed to advocating for the best interests of our shareholders and ensuring transparency, accountability, and ethical governance in all our actions. Ngā mihi. Thank you.
Thank you, Barbara. I now invite discussion on the resolution. Are there any questions that shareholders would like to ask Barbara Chapman? If you're in the room, I invite you to please raise your hand and a microphone will be handed to you. Before you ask your question, please state your name. There's a question here.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman. My name is Alan Best, and I'm the proxy holder for New Zealand Shareholders' Association members, and I think there's about 250 of them. So I have some responsibility to the work that's gone into preparing for this meeting.
I would like to ask Barbara about her work commitments, because a number of directors suggest to me that the company looks for busy people when it seeks a new director. And that's understandable, because it's a big company and necessary to have the best possible directors. So could we ask Barbara, through you, sir, just for her feeling about the work commitments that she's undertaking at the moment?
Okay. Barbara, would you like to comment on it?
Thanks, Alan. Is my microphone on?
No. Come up here. Pop up.
Thank you, Alan. Look, I think it's a very fair question, and you heard me talk in my speech about, you know, my workload as the former chief executive of ASB and my time over in Australia. I would not stand for re-election if I felt I didn't have the time to put into this business. It's as simple as that.
All these businesses, all of us as directors, are well aware of the time commitment that is involved. I feel like for myself, I'm probably working at about 80%-85% of the pace that I worked at as a chief executive in my executive life. I am very committed to making sure that I put in the time on this board and all of my boards to get the work done that we need to do as your representatives, as directors. Thank you.
Thanks, Barbara. I would make one other comment. Alan, you often find the best directors are busy, and I wonder why that is. Are there any other questions? Are there any questions online?
Bruce, we've got a question from Bob Haywood of South Pacific Securities Limited. Bob asks, and it's a similar question to the last one: "While we are impressed with Barbara's credentials and track record, can she truly give the necessary time to Fletcher Building with the other comprehensive commitments to other chair and board roles?
Okay. I don't think you need to respond to that, Barbara. I think you, you've dealt with that. I'll just make one comment. Barbara is an outstanding director. The shareholders are lucky to have her on the board. She contributes enormously, and her work commitment is extraordinary.
So I have no concerns whatsoever on Barbara's ability to contribute and to fully do everything I need of her as a director. Okay, we're gonna move on to the next resolution, if there's no more questions. It's now my pleasure to move that Martin Brydon be re-elected as a director of the company.
Martin was appointed to the board on 1 September 2018. He's a member of the People and Remuneration Committee, and a member of the Safety, Health, Environment, and Sustainability Committee. That's always a mouthful.
The board has agreed that he is an independent director. His credentials are outlined in the explanatory notes to the notice of meeting. The board unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of his re-election. I now extend to Martin the opportunity to address the meeting in support of his re-election. Martin, over to you.
Tena koe, Bruce, and kia ora. Good morning, everyone. It is my pleasure and a privilege to be here today to address you at your annual shareholders' meeting. As you've heard, I joined the Fletcher Board in 2018, and I would consider it a privilege to continue to be part of the board.
I bring more than 40 years' experience in the Australian building, products, and construction materials sectors, having started my career as an engineering cadet at BHP. I joined Cockburn Cement as an electrical engineer and was the CEO of that company when it was merged into the Australian-listed company, Adelaide Brighton Limited, in 1999. I retired from Adelaide Brighton in 2019 after five years as the CEO and three years as the CEO and managing director.
In between, I held a wide variety of senior executive roles, including engineering, operations management, sales and marketing, general management, and strategy and business development. I am also the Chair of Duratec Australia, an ASX-listed engineering, construction, and remediation business that has operations across all states and territories in Australia.
Being one of two Australian-based directors on the board of Fletcher Building, I bring valuable perspective on the Australian market. While it is very much work in progress, it was very pleasing to see Fletcher's Australian division deliver a much improved result over the last financial year. Since my time as a director, I have visited numerous Fletcher sites across Australia. During these visits, I have enjoyed the talking to the staff, hearing about the challenges they have, and discussing health and safety.
As we have heard, the last five years has not been without its challenges for Fletcher Building. In addition to the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing supply chain issues, the company also suffered the convention center fire that resulted in a very complex, costly, and protracted repair.
However, over this period, the board worked very closely with the management team to ensure focus was maintained on the agreed business strategy that is aimed at delivering profitable growth through the cycle.
Examples of some of the achievements which, some examples which, you've already heard some of, include a greatly improved safety record. That is something that the company is very proud of, what's been achieved in that regard. We have made significant progress in the important area of sustainability.
The environmental impact our businesses can have on the environment is taken very seriously across the group, and our improved performance, as reported, is real. The reshaping of the construction division was very important for the group.
This business now has a very strong forward order book with materially lower risk projects and higher margin work. The company's recent investments in its core profitable businesses with innovation and sustainability at the heart of these decisions has been key.
And last but not least, again, I'll reiterate what Bruce has said about the strengths of the company's underlying financial performance, despite some of the challenges we've talked about. I stand for re-election, confident that the board is steering Fletcher Group in the right direction.
I will continue to be a director that asks questions of management that I feel need to be asked, to ensure value is delivered to all shareholders in an ethical and sustainable way. Thank you for your consideration of my re-election, and with your support, I look forward to continuing to serve on the board. Thank you.
Thank you, Martin. I now invite discussion on the resolution. Are there any questions that shareholders would like to ask Martin Brydon? If you're in the room, I invite you to please raise your hand, and a microphone will be handed to you. Before you ask your question, please state your name. Okay, there's no questions in the room. Are there any questions online?
There appears to be no further questions on the director re-election resolution.
Thank you. Let's move on to the next one, Resolution for Sandra Dodds. It is now my pleasure to move that Sandra Dodds be elected as a director of the company. Sandra was appointed to the board on 1 September 2023. She's a member of the Audit and Risk Committee and a member of the Safety, Health, Environment and Sustainability Committee.
The board has agreed that she is an independent director. Her credentials are outlined in the explanatory notes to the notice of meeting. The board unanimously recommends that shareholders vote in favor of her election. I now extend to Sandra the opportunity to address the meeting in support of her election. Sandra?
Thank you, Bruce. Kia ora tātou. I'm delighted to join you here today to seek your support for election, endorsing my appointment to the Board of Fletcher Building earlier this year. While now Melbourne-based, I was actually born in Invercargill and went to school in Tuatapere and Gore before studying commerce at Otago University.
I consider myself a very proud Kiwi, and hopefully more so on Sunday, with a global outlook. As such, I have had a long admiration for Fletcher Building, a company which shares a similar South Island origin, expanding to operate across both sides of the Tasman, as I do today.
I believe that Fletcher Building is uniquely positioned to respond to some of the major challenges we have in our region, such as in housing, establishing and maintaining the critical infrastructure for population growth in our main centers, and in showing the others how it is done, as the company pursues its ambition for a sustainably better business into the future.
For more than 30 years, I've held leadership roles in major construction and infrastructure businesses, including being CEO of Urban Infrastructure at Broadspectrum, formerly known as Transfield Services, and holding senior executive roles in Downer here in New Zealand, and in later years in Australia and Asia. I now sit on the boards of Contact Energy, Beca, OceanaGold, and Snowy Hydro, which is based in Australia.
In building my career in governance, I have developed a thoughtful portfolio of directorships with a deliberate mix of energy, construction, infrastructure, and mining industries. Beyond being simply vital to society, these businesses and industries have significant environmental, sustainability, and corporate governance challenges, which I'm passionate to get stuck into.
I have a particular interest in audit and risk, which demands considerable economic discipline and risk attentiveness, as well as a good nose for investment for growth. You can expect me to be plainspoken and no-nonsense in my approach of matters of governance, and to always bring an international lens, applying global expertise and driving performance into the wider organization. During my time with Fletcher Building, I'm keen to get behind efforts to do things differently, and I'm encouraged by several innovative projects already on the go.
I'm inspired by the disruptiveness of the Vivid Living senior living initiative, providing great value homes and multi-generational neighborhoods for older residents who want the benefits of community living and the freedom to retain more of their hard-earned financial equity.
I'm also excited to track the progress of the first home being built by an all-female build crew and the first low-carbon home, a Fletcher Living home, built with seven times less embodied carbon than a standard build. These are fantastic showcases of the power of Fletcher Building companies when they come together to meet the moment....
I'm confident that I have the right insights, experience, and perspective to support Fletcher Building as it continues to perform and to grow to its great potential. I promise to be forthright and upfront in collaboration with my fellow directors, not shying away from the tough calls. I'm excited about the opportunities ahead, and thank you for your consideration. Thank you.
Thank you, Sandra. I now invite discussion on the resolution. Are there any questions that shareholders would like to ask Sandra Dodds? If you're in the room, I invite you to please raise your hand, and a microphone will be handed to you. Before you ask your question, please state your name. No questions in the room. Are there any questions online?
There appears to be no questions on the director re-election resolution.
Thank you. Thank you. We'll now move to the fifth resolution. I now move that the directors be authorized to fix the fees and expenses of the auditor. EY is the company's auditor and is automatically reappointed under the Companies Act of 1993. This resolution authorizes the board to fix the fees and expenses of the auditor.
EY audit partners are present at the meeting should shareholders have any questions of them concerning this resolution. I now invite discussion on the resolution. Are there any questions in the room? There seems to be no questions in the room. Are there any questions online?
There appears to be no questions on the auditor fees and expenses.
Okay, thank you. We'll now vote on the resolutions. I invite you to now cast your votes on the five resolutions as displayed on the screen. Please now cast your votes. The voting on the five resolutions will close shortly. Please ensure that you've cast your vote on all resolutions. We'll take a few minutes break now to allow you time to finalize these votes.
For those in the room, please place your completed voting proxy forms in the ballot boxes that will be coming around. Okay, we've got all those ballot boxes. Good. Okay, voting on the resolutions is now closed. You now see on the screen the results of the postal voting received ahead of the meeting for the resolutions. These postal votes do not include, do not include discretionary proxies held. These will be voted on at the meeting.
The company's auditor, EY, will act as scrutineer for the polls. Please note that the final results of voting on the resolutions will be advised to the NZX and ASX this afternoon, which will obviously incorporate anybody that voted just now. Ladies and gentlemen, gentlemen, finally, we turn to the part of the meeting where shareholders have the opportunity to raise questions.
I'd now like to give any shareholder, both present here and online, the opportunity to ask questions. While we wait, while we wait for your questions first in the room, we will address the pre-submitted questions received ahead of the meeting, which haven't been specifically answered through my or Ross's address already.
We received a question from Rodney Harrison: "Regarding the Western Australian pipe update, how much is allowed in the maximum AUD 10,000 per home quoted to cover for homeowner disruption, including temporary accommodation, until all work has been completed to the satisfaction of the homeowner or agreed authorities?" That was the question.
The response is: In our presentation to the market on Friday the thirteenth, interesting date, we noted that currently the cost of repairs are averaging about AUD 4,000. That ranges from a simple leak repair, which is about AUD 1,000, to a full ceiling pipe replacement, which is about AUD 5,000 to AUD 6,000. We provided a higher average estimate of AUD 10,000 per home, as individual homes may or may not need more.... The second question is from Martin Gaine.
I want to understand what the board is doing about the ongoing poor share price performance. Fletcher Building is being significantly outperformed by its peers." Thanks for the question. We have looked at this closely and engaged with shareholders and analysts to ensure the board and management are not missing anything, and our focus is correct. We heard consistent themes from investors.
Firstly, concern over the New Zealand macro outlook, the New Zealand economy. Secondly, how Fletcher Building performs through the cycle, so through the building cycle. And thirdly, the importance of clearing the legacy projects, which we've talked about.
We can't do anything on the macro, but as you've seen from these presentations, we are very focused on ensuring Fletcher Building performs and grows, and we are focused on clearing the final legacy projects. We'll now answer questions, starting with those in the room. Please raise your hand if you have a question, and wait for the microphone to come to you. Hold on while we get a microphone to you.
Good morning. Can you hear me?
Yes, fine.
Okay, fine. My name is Murtuza Baig. Okay, you want me to stand up or is it okay sitting?
You're fine. As long as we can hear you, that's fine.
I'm about to read something.
Okay.
Okay. My first question is, it's not a question, it is just an observation, that, see, we have been plagued with this, what you call, hurdles all across. I have been a shareholder since 2017, I think, since you took over. First we had that, you know, the SkyCity Convention Centre, this is the legacy problem, which is still continuing.
We had that Ihumātao problem. Now, suddenly, we have developed this leaky pipe. Can you tell me, since when this leaky pipe has started? Are we vanishing it for the first time, or is it in existence prior to this? Whether there was no problem earlier and suddenly the problem has started.
Okay.
Something is... I will, okay, I will go on. I'll ask, keep on asking the questions, you-
Well, you want to... Well, why don't we respond to that, and then you can ask your second one?
Okay.
So, Ross, why don't you pick that up?
Yeah. I think you asked the timing of it, so let me just frame it. The period where we're seeing the issues in WA from the plumbing failures is from roughly about 2017 to the end of, say, 2022, is the product,
But why it has come to light now?
So what we're seeing then is that the pipe, roughly, when we look at the statistics of what we're looking at, we're seeing about... It takes about 3 years, and we're seeing evidence of leaks, and there's a sort of a time lag with it.
Okay.
What we... As we've done our testing on the pipes and extensive in-house reviews, as we've had our teams in there, what you're seeing is the, a real alignment of installation failures with the leaks. In fact, we've seen complete alignment. So wherever there's been a leak, there's been an installation failure.
What... And to give you a sense of what that means, is that this pipe can be bent, but not too much, and some of it's really bent over or kinked. It can be—when it goes in a wall, it's got to go in there loosely, so it actually can expand and contract, and if you cement or concrete it in, it can't do that. Quite often, then there's a bunch of other... I won't go into all of them, that are actually just, there's about four different installation issues.
What that does is it puts extra stress in the pipe, and it just takes time then for that to manifest itself in a leak. So, so... and therefore, it's sort of averaging about three years. Just to put it into frame, it's that period of time, it's about 17,000 homes in WA, in Perth, that are, that we, are potentially affected, and we're seeing a leak rate of about 10.9% have leaked at this stage.
When you look at those, it's actually really concentrated to two plumbers and one builder. So 94% of the issue is there. What you find across the rest of the market there, we're not seeing anything like that rate. So, so all that sort of points to installation and what we're doing to work with the industry.
So the fund has been put in place, so while we work out exactly the causation, what the f-- how to fix it and get industry sort of... We just didn't want to leave homeowners swinging, so we put the fund in place so we could actually support the plumbers and builders to actually get in there and get it fixed so homeowners aren't suffering, and the fix gets done quickly.
And as we get more data and we get more sophisticated in what the fix is, we'll hopefully be able to work with the industry then to help them solve the problem and understand where it may or may not occur.
Ross, thank you for that. But I know because there's a lot of technicality in that. It doesn't matter, but now, second question is, whether this particular leaking problem is limited to Western Australia, or was that supply done only in Western Australia, or was it done all across Australia, and it has been manifested only in Western Australia?
Just talk there, Ross.
Yep. So it was manufactured in Albury, in Victoria. So one plant around, and it's gone into around about 30,000 houses across Australia. 15,000 on the East Coast, and around 17,000 on the West Coast. There is no abnormal leak rates on the East Coast, so all of those installations, there's no abnormal leaking. It's only-
But why? Have you investigated why is it so?
So yes is the answer. So it's, as part of doing this whole piece of work is to understand, okay, it's not leaking at all abnormally on the East Coast. And then what you see is the difference in installation practices between the East and the West Coast. And then you go on the West Coast, and as I said, there's quite a degree of variability between builders and plumbers as to where most of the leaks are occurring. So again, that aligns with installation.
Okay. That puts us in a better position.
Okay.
Yeah.
Two questions, I'm gonna stop there. You-- If you wanna ask a follow-on question, I'll, I'll go around the room, I'll come back to you. Is there any other questions anybody would like to ask? Down the back of the room.
Yes. Yes, Aaron Stranahan, I'm a shareholder. These pipes, the plastic ones, do they use crimping or compression joints, do they? Following on to that, it's a question of if they're using that, does it actually occ... Are they used for both hot and cold water? Is the problem related to either hot or cold? I understand that it's fairly common that, with hot water system, you'll get the expansion and contraction with the actual pipe.
Okay, great. A number of questions there. Why don't you pick those all up?
I'd love to. I feel like I'm gonna get really tested on my pipe technical expertise today, but I'm happy to go there with you all. So with the installation, and you talk about crimping, so what's in our specifications when we sell the product into the plumbers, is that if you're going to bend the pipe more than 10 times the diameter of the pipe, you need to put an elbow in.
It's not a crimp, it's actually then it gets glued into an elbow. And what we're seeing is where a lot of the issues are predominantly bending issues, where the pipes have been massively over bent. And the particular issue that's where we're seeing a lot of it, is when in Western Australia, it's a double brick construction.
It goes up the brick wall, and it comes out the top of the wall, and they've got to bend it over under the roof, and because it's very small tolerances there, it gets over bent, quite often kinked, but quite often just over bent. There was a second part to that question I've just lost—
Hot and cold.
Oh, hot and cold.
Hot water.
Yeah, sorry. So we are seeing... Yeah, so it's both hot and cold. We're seeing more evidence in cold pipes, but it aligns with what I'd call the proportions, and I'll explain it this way. So what you see is the way the leaks are occurring broadly equally, as you'd expect in hot and cold. But in cold pipes, there's more cold pipes in a house, and then what you also see is cold pipes get used more.
So when you adjust the percentages of leaks, we're seeing for both the extra percentage of cold versus hot pipes and then the usage. And every time you turn a tap on and off, or a washing machine goes on, it puts water hammer and pressure through the pipe. So, those percentages line up exactly with the sort of percentage we're seeing in leaks between hot and cold.
Are all of the joints actually glued then? You talk about the elbow joints, but what about for instance, if you
So the issue is not in the joints. What the issue is that in Western Australia, for whatever or the plumbing practices are such, that if you look at east versus west, broadly, everything on the East Coast will be done, every bend is in an elbow. The issue is not in the pipe in the elbow. The issue is where it's bent, it's overstressed, and it's leaking where it's been over bent. So the-
Where they're not using elbows.
There's no issue with the joining method per se.
That's, that's the glue. There's no problem with the glue?
There's no problem with that. It's actually leaking through the pipe itself because it's been held in place and can't stretch, so it gets overstretched or it's been over bent.
Thank you.
Just as observation, when we were discussing this in the board early on, one of the people explained it to us: If you have your garden hose and you bend it like that and leave it there for a while, you will... It eventually will crack or it'll start to leak. There's a complex and sort of layman's non-technical terms, what seems to be happening here in a lot of the cases. In fact, in, you know, a significant number of the cases where we've gone in to look at installations. Are there any other questions in the room? Thank you. Over there.
Hi, my name is David. I'm a shareholder. I'm just asking, you said these pipe issues are installation issues, correct? From two builders... Sorry, two plumbers and a builder, right? Are they affiliated with Fletcher Building in any way?
No, they are not.
Then the real question is: why are we footing the bill for this? As you say, you set up a, what was it? NZD 10 million fund for them to dip their toes into. Over this month, we've eaten a massive reputation hit to the company and huge costs to our share price. So like, like I say, why do we need to take more of this cost?
It's a good question. Ross, why don't you pick that up?
Yeah. Let me talk to the journey here, is that, what... We didn't go into this assuming pipe wasn't the problem. When we started seeing late last year... Now, we're getting the dates right anyway. Well, it might be that, but when we started seeing late last year.
I think it was the volume of leaks, we started doing a lot of testing, and not just internally, externally as well, 'cause we just didn't want to be drinking our own Kool-Aid on this. We wanted to verify what our own testing was telling us. As we saw that pipes looked like they were fit for purpose and code compliant— then you have to get into what was actually causing it. There's a lot of consternation out there with homeowners and regulators and builders in terms of, well, what's going on? We had.
The only way we could work that out was to get into the houses. So the logic was, look, let's just put an interim fund in there that actually covers the cost, makes sure the homeowners- are getting sorted while we could get in. What we've said is, the builders could draw down on it, the plumbers can draw on the fund, so long as our team can go in and go beside them and take photos of the installation. We also want to check, is it water chemistry? Is it water pressure?
So it was just. If we didn't do that, we wouldn't be able to get to the bottom of it, and it, it would have actually just become a bigger and bigger problem. What's happened then is that, you know, we're working really effectively with all of the industry, except one builder who's got the majority of the problem, Buckeridge Group. They will not let us into their houses to have a look at any of their installations, so you can make of that what you wish.
They're the ones that have been doing all the market presentations that have actually caused the issues, which we've been responded to quite fulsomely, and I'd just refer you to that presentation I did back on the thirteenth.
Thank you.
Yeah. I mean, if anybody wanted to, you know, there's a roster to that presentation on the thirteenth. It's on our website. It's very, very... It's a 50-page presentation, and there's a webinar there. So if you want to get more background detail, read that. It's very comprehensive. Are there any other questions? Then I'll come down. Can I have a mic over here, please? A mic down the front. Down here. Keep going. Down here. Put your hand up, so she can-- Yeah.
Jim Hamilton, shareholder. I'm just asking about your plans for residential developments. New Zealand, Auckland is one of the most sprawling cities in the world. I think about the fourth most sprawling city in the world. It was disappointing to hear that you said you're getting out of the high-rise, the vertical, building structures.
Does that mean that you're gonna be going into greenfields and... Greenfields is a very high cost to the New Zealand economy, very high cost to emissions, very high cost to families who have to travel, and very high cost to our health of New Zealand people. You must be investing in apartments near stations. It's a no-brainer.
The cost of building. You must be making more money out of one apartment close to a station with 50 units than building 50 houses away out somewhere at high cost to families. What are your plans about that?
Okay, thank you on that. Just to sort of clarify, we've exited, when I said the vertical market, that's building, commercial building, high-rises. We won't be building another convention center those days. We've exited that, what I call the commercial building sector. In the context of building houses and homes for people, we are in apartments.
About 18 months or so ago, we made a decision, as part of our Fletcher, our residential and development area, to build mo- go into apartments, and we've got our first apartment building. These are sort of two, three-story apartment buildings. They might be 50 or 60. We're not going into high-rise apartments. Been there, lost a lot of money, not taking your shareholders' capital back into that space.
We are going to, and we are moving into building apartments, which is consistent with our residential living. It'll be two or three, maybe four stories high. That, and our first one is underway.
About the profitability, building, say, one apartment with 5 or 10 stories, compared to building 50 houses way out, which is more profitable?
Well, look, profitability can depend on location, size. Profitability is driven by a range of factors. But, you know, building apartments is very much part of our product offering, that our Fletcher Living business is focused on.
I know you build an apartment, built an apartment building in Three Kings, which is-
Yes, correct.
-very attractive.
Yeah. So, and we-
I think it's five-
Hopefully, you'll see more attractive ones in the period ahead.
Maybe 10 stories high and, close to everything. Good for, good for the economy, good for,
Thank you
... the people living there.
Okay. Any other questions? Got one, one down the front here.
Thanks. Alan Best. I forgot to mention, I'm also representing Australian shareholders from the Australian Shareholders' Association. But back in the day, I asked a question, Mr. Chairman, about R&D, and I'd been reading articles which were international and suggested that the future of a company is often reflected early in its expenditure and its attention paid to R&D.
And that's more of an operational sort of matter than a governance matter, but as I understand it, you're approving projects at board level, which include a very high level of R&D. But from my point of view, I can't read about the R&D at all in the annual report or its expenditure, because it's buried in the divisional summaries. So could you tell us, from a governance point of view, how you keep abreast of the expenditure on R&D?... for the future of our company?
Okay, so it's a good question. So when I sort of think about R&D, I sort of tend to think of it more in relation to the innovation area. So, I mean, and so, my comment to you is that in recent years, we've put a lot more focus into that whole innovation area. We have a dedicated innovation group at the center, which brings new ideas and pushes those out to the businesses, and the businesses come to them. So we have a whole range of, you know, innovation ideas where we're spending money, so you could, in that sense, R&D, developing things.
I mean, I think more recently, we've just set up an R&D, innovation R&D, call it what you like, concrete lab down in Christchurch, that Nick, head of our concrete group in the front row there, was driven. So yeah, we are very focused on that. Ross, is there any other sort of comments you might want to make on?
Look, I mean, the only thing I'd add to it is just echoing Bruce's comment on the focus on it. The way we look at it is, can you innovate and drive growth, and how do you do it? And what we and, and when you've got very different types of businesses in there, so the just a simple R&D metric doesn't really work.
So what we do is we say: What's world-class best practice in each business, and how do we get them to that? And that drives a whole lot of innovation, R&D. But equally, I find for us, it's just as important to get out around the world and see what's going on. And being a fast follower and a good copier and not getting too precious about it is as important as inventing at home .
So I think we've got a nice blend of trialing and trying stuff ourselves, which is genuine R&D, and also then commercializing what we see around the world. So we're very externally focused on what we can find, and you're starting to see that translate nicely into the performance of the business, as well as the growth opportunities in front of it.
Okay, are there any other questions on, in the room? Oh, sorry, question over, over there, and then we're going to go online and see if there's any questions online.
Roel Daru. I was wondering what the growth, profit margin you're achieving on construction outside the legacy projects?
Ross, do you want to pick that up?
Yeah, look, it's not where we want it to be yet. The... What we're looking for is at least 3%-5% EBIT margins on the construction business. And what you saw last year, it was running at around about two, I think, 2%. So we're just not where we want to be yet. And that said, when you get under the cover of that, it's been basically, you're seeing really good performance in a real chunk of that.
What we needed to see was the bigger projects where we're doing Alliance, Eastern Busway, and RiverLink, when they start to hit their straps and get into full production, then that'll actually give us a natural lift. And the other part is Higgins has had to work through. It's got caught up in a lot of what I call the legacy project.
So it was at the top table, and it was doing a lot of basically free work in there, so it had a lot of revenue that wasn't actually making. So what I think you'll see as we get into FY 2025, particularly, is all that stuff which I mentioned will be clear, and a lot of the performance resets will be done through the business. So I'd start to expect it to actually drift into the—drift's the wrong word, get into that 3-5-
Yeah.
lift into the 3%-5% range. So, so I'd ultimately like to see that construction business at the 5% level, but let's, first things first, let's get it into what I call a reasonable range first. And I think we've got all the settings just about right to get it there now.
Okay, we'll go online. Are there any questions online?
Two questions from Stephen John Bell. Question one: Have we exited the American market completely? Question two: Has there been a final conclusion to the financial costs of the Auckland Convention Centre?
So in relation to the American market-
Out, yeah.
No, we have, yeah, completely out of the American market. Unless Ross has been doing something that the board's not aware of. But no, we're not in the American market. And the second question was in relation to a financial conclusion.
No, we... And we, we touched on that in the presentation, and Ross specifically commented that, you know, project won't be finished until about this time next year. And, you know, there is some risk involved in that, but we are very focused on managing that. Are there any other online questions?
Got a question from John Van Loon: When the pipes were sold by Iplex, were they sold with installation instructions?
Ross?
Yes. I mean, it just... Yeah, so basically, there's basically the full instructions on how to do it. There's two parts to the puzzle, though, but there's also code requirements that licensed plumbers should observe as well. And what we're seeing is failures on both our installation instructions, but also on some of the code requirements as well.
There appears to be no further questions online.
Okay, we've got a question. We're gonna go back to the gentleman down the front here, and then we've got somebody down the back of the room. Yeah.
No, Ross, just to tell you one thing, that, this, you know, these things, whatever, whatever hurdles you are facing, it reflects on our share prices and our profitability. Therefore, we, as a shareholder, are more concerned about that, and we bring the problem before you.
So we just wanted to ask you, if you have made any processes or any consultation or committees or accountability in your management team, so that such mishaps should not happen in the future. You know, what has happened has happened, but if you have some, you know, committees or if you review a project or something like that, so you minimize the risk of having such type of mishaps. That is my first thing.
And second thing, when you have all these, you know, comparison between 18 and 23 of the employees and you have the carbon dioxide emission, customer satisfaction, but nothing about the shareholders' ratings, whether it has gone up or down.
Okay, well, why don't I just make a comment on the construction side of it and legacy projects? I mean, as like both Ross and I covered it, we inherited a construction business that was had entered into some contracts they shouldn't have entered into. They'd grown tremendously, and we had a major problem on our, on our hands.
I think I previously said, you know, when construction blew up, and we sort of over NZD 1 billion worth of losses, it was a near-death experience for Fletchers. So we are never going back to that. We are never going back to a situation in construction where we sign fixed price contracts with limited upside and unlimited downside. So those steps have been taken. You know, we are. So we have reset the business.
We now will only do major contracts where we have minimal risk, where we can manage, because you never want to take on any risk that you can't manage. And also that deliver appropriate profit margins for the work we're doing. So those processes are in place.
And, you know, the board has worked very closely with management to make sure that going forward, that our construction business is never going back to the place it was at, because it has been very painful for shareholders and the share price. It's been equally painful for management, and the board, and we're all shareholders as well, so we totally get that. Second question, Ross.
Yes, so going back to the, the risk elsewhere question. Firstly, if I, I'll, I'll just start with pipes. Firstly, is what when we've reviewed our QA processes and we've had the pipes tested to within an inch of their lives, with through, I think, 6 or 7 outside experts and 5 different laboratories for every different thing, what we've found is the pipe is fit for purpose and code compliance.
So, so what it firstly says is the QA processes we have in the business and that business were working. When we've then obviously gone back and, well, we've looked at the installation guidelines and, and how they've been disseminated, again, comfortable with that.
So, the first point I'd make is that as we've sort of gone back forensically and looked at what's occurred here in the environment, we've been satisfied with, like, with all those elements. And that's hence why we're doing what we're doing over there. When you step right back, though, and we look across the business again, you know, we see similar levels of good quality control, good understanding of installation across the business.
But the question you asked is relevant, and we're just only just talking about the last board meeting, is just to step back and make sure we're not missing a beat anywhere else across any of our businesses. So, you've got to look at these things and think, what lessons can you learn? And we are doing that, you know. I'm not expecting anything, but it's a very healthy thing to ask yourself, have you got all your settings right, and are you looking at everything correctly? So we are doing that.
Question at the back there, and then we'll come to...
Yes, Aaron Stranahan again. As far as the convention centre is concerned, did I understand that you said that you'd provided extra for something related to fire? Was that the issue, and could you elaborate on exactly that is?
Yeah. I mean, basically when the fire took place in 2019, we were about six, seven months away from finishing it. I mean, if the fire hadn't have happened, we wouldn't be talking about convention centre. It would have been finished years ago, and any sort of claims wash up or whatever, that would all be behind us.
Yeah. When the fire took place, the insurance cover kicked in. What's actually played out is the insurance cover, which was done on normal commercial basis, never envisaged the level of costs involved in remediating the fire, and in particular, remediating the steel. The cost of that remediation of the steel has been hundreds of millions of NZD more than what the original steel that went in there.
So we got to a situation where the total cost of the remediation, which we're almost... We're almost back to the stage, the day before the fire, but that's a few months away from now. The cost of that has exceeded the insurance cover. So we've had to book additional provisions, what I call fire-related provisions, that are over and above the insurance cover, and that's what's been booked this year.
About what amount?
The total amounts from that are around about sort of NZD 250 million. Included in that, we've got additional insurance recoveries that we're going after, but the way the accounting rules work, you have to book all the cost or the provisions up front, and then if you're able to claim some of that back through insurance, which we are very, very focused on doing, but you can't recognize those till you've got them.
Thank you.
Okay. Sorry. Yeah, mic up here.
Hello, my name is Yuri Sale. Hello, everybody. I've read the, a few weeks ago, the presentation, regarding the pipes, and I thought regarding, depth and the kind of information you've put in, I thought it was an excellent piece of defense. But of course, I've not seen the presentation of the other side.
So, so it's quite difficult to objectively judge about that. Ross, can I ask you, as of today, what does your belly say? Is there, is this thing going to lead to litigation or to a settlement? And can you remind us, please, if there's gonna be litigation, will it be the location of the proceedings, Australia or New Zealand?
And, are there gonna be one, two, or three instances or layers of, court proceedings then? And the last one attached to that, I think you brought up the total damage, NZD 100 million or so. I've, I've seen, the other side claiming NZD 1.8 billion or NZD 1.9 billion. What, in case of a legal proceeding, would the sum in dispute be?
Okay, a lot of questions there. Why don't you sort of start with... So a compliment on the quality of the presentation, and it was a high-quality presentation and a lot of detail in it. So-
Let me-
The first question was in relation to-
I'll start. It's easier to start at the end, I think.
Start at the end and work backwards.
Yeah, because the, understand the, the number that was put out there by BGC, the 1.8 billion, was based on removing all the pipe, their estimate of removing all the pipe in all the houses across Australia, which is 30,000 houses. All right? It was basically the way I characterized it then and now as sensational and a little bit fanciful.
Because firstly, what we're seeing on the East Coast is no leaks above very normal back. Take out those 15,000, so your 1.8 already is half, and then you get into Perth. Basically, as I said, we're seeing it's affecting 10% of the houses. That was, again, full removal across 17,000 houses of all pipes and reinstatements.
So that's how they came up with that number, and they were trying to actually attract attention. And, you know, so it was basically a deliberate stunt. When you come back to what, where our estimate came from. And look, we don't know precisely it, 'cause we just need to get enough data. But what we're trying to do is interpret the data trends we've got.
So what we're seeing, and we've been working on this quite in a focused way now for five or six months, and what we're seeing in our data trends is that as I mentioned, that the leaks are sort of running. It leaks on average in about three or four years, and after that, it drops right off.
The other thing we're then just looking at is, well, what are we seeing in the other trends, and what percentage can we expect of houses to leak? And, again, we're just a bit early to get precise. So when we did our estimate, we sort of said, "Look, the, the average cost per leak is costing us about NZD 4,000, you know, that, that we've spent today to fix it."
And when we said: Look, okay, if you end up doing... If you call it 10, and then you say, if there's 20% leak or 30% leak, that's how the fift- so we've sort of tried to dimension, though we don't know, but that sort of seemed a reasonable dimension. When you get into then, how does it all get washed up and who sues who? Time will tell.
I mean, it'll depend on who, where everyone lands on who's, who's responsible, how did it play out, and there's a bit of work to do. But the thing I'd point to is, if you look at the way we've estimated, that feels pretty robust on what we know now as in that scenario. So that's sort of the pie we're chasing, not NZD 1.8 billion. I think that's just sensationalist.
But you cannot. Are you ruling out a settlement because you're feeling very confident in your own analysis, or?
I don't, I'm not, well, I'm not gonna speculate on that yet. I've tried to dimension it. We've got to work through this. I don't know exactly where we'll land on all that.
Thank you.
Are there... Oh, over there.
Paul Ford, a shareholder. What awareness or knowledge is there within the business of the New Zealand leaky pipe problem of 20-25 years ago, and if that has been involved in your assessment of the current situation? I ask because we experienced a problem. It was an installation problem, no T joints, no elbow joints, bent pipes through narrow holes through beams. And if that was, if anyone was aware of that, would that have assisted with your assessment of the Australian experience?
Do you want me to-
Yeah, go for it.
Yeah, look, what, what we did as we tried to get our mind around this, is we just didn't look at that. We looked at what happened. There's been issues with pipes around the world, in the US and other jurisdictions. And we've been looking at good and bad, because we really want to step back and, as I said, not just assume we had everything covered. So we've actually gone back and looked at all, a number of different events.
And around polybutylene, there was a chemical issue in the water in the US, which caused a number of issues as well. So we've made sure we tried to understand all that and see if any of that was applicable to what we're seeing in WA. And we've also gone back, 'cause polybutylene, the pipe we're using, gets used all around the world.
So we've tried to see are there any other leaks occurring and what, any other things. So we've actually done a lot of work to try and make sure is there anything out there in history or in recent experiences that we should understand and use? So we have looked at that, and we're finding the issues in WA quite specific there.
And as I said, we've ruled out water chemistry. We thought it might have been water chemistry, 'cause too much chlorine in the water can give you problems. So we've ruled that out. So a number of the things that were around in some of the other events aren't applicable there, so we have looked at it, yes.
To see what you described in your house wasn't a pipes problem, it was an insulation problem. You were..... Yeah, which is in breach of code, similar code to New Zealand or Australia, and breach of clear insulation requirements that we... When we sell our product. Is there any other questions?
... online as well.
Online? We'll take a question online, and then we'll come back.
Right, so we've got a few questions, of which two relate to the WA piping issue. First question-
Hold on. Can I say, if there are questions that are largely being asked that I don't want... We won't go there. If they're raising a new point, I'm happy to take them. If they're repeating what we've other questions, we won't go there.
So there is a new one.
Okay, fine.
This is from C.P.L. Yell. Regarding the WA piping issue, will we claw back the AUD 15 million if it can be proven that we are not at fault?
The short answer to that, it was around the NZD 15 million... No, no, it's actually been, there is, we've sort of spending that with the builders on basically there's no recourse, it's spent. The idea that we didn't want them to get suspicious, so there's no... We didn't-- So it's been very transparent, no gags, nothing like that. It's just: here's a fund. Yeah, we'll use that while we get to the bottom of what's going on. There, there's planned to be no recourse on the NZD 15 million.
We've got a question from Stephen John Bell: Are there any business acquisitions that you are looking at that add value to the group?
So there are currently no business acquisitions that we're focused on. As both Ross and I touched on, we've committed NZD 800 million of capital for organic growth opportunities, which are in New Zealand, and that's our primary focus at the moment. Okay. Oh, sorry, question here.
Yes, Bruce Cooper. The company has incurred and taken very considerable losses over the last few years, the Christchurch Precinct Centre and what's going on in Auckland. Can you tell me, what is the progress that's being made on claims in these projects? Because as you look at these jobs and you think there must be some ability to claw back some from the architect or whatever.
All right.
Could we-
Every opportunity we can to go after claims, we have done so. So, and they've largely been settled, but, your ability to go after claims is obviously normally directly related to the contract you've signed and the quality of your performance. And I think one of the clear messages that we've been saying for a while now is that, you know, the mess we got ourselves in, in, you know, 2018, 2019 in relation to contracts, some of which the Convention Centre was signed.
I think 2015 or some of these contracts were signed two years before I even came on the board, three years before Ross came on the board. So where we can go after claims, we are aggressively going after claims. But, there's no pot of gold out there, otherwise we would have already got our hands on it. Okay.
Thank you.
Okay, there doesn't appear to be any further questions. Thank you very much for all your questions. It's just been great. Ladies and gentlemen, that brings us to the end of the formal business of the company's 2023 Annual Shareholders Meeting. I now declare the meeting closed.
Thank you for your attendance and participation today. We'll be pleased if you will join us for light refreshments, which are being served in the foyer off to the room on my right. Thank you very much and have a good day. And go the ABs on Sunday morning!