New Zealand’s biggest builders: Part two – second tier revealed

New Zealand’s top 20 builders have $7.3 billion worth of work on the go, with $5.7b being carried out by the top 10 alone.

In April the Herald profiled the top 10, as revealed by
data specialists BCI in its construction league table of 50 building companies.

These are each huge companies in their own right, having significant influence over our fast-changing environment, building new hospitals, schools, offices, warehouses, apartments, townhouses – and so much more.

Today we focus on the second tier, ranked 11 to 20, each with more than $100 million of work on their books. They are also some of the biggest names in the multibillion-dollar sector, usually New Zealand-founded, owned and operated with long and highly successful histories.

The latest Stats NZ data for non-residential building work put in place for the year to March year showed:

By region, the actual value of total building work in the March 2023 quarter compared with the March 2022 quarter, was:

Many construction companies and developers have folded amid the pressures plaguing the building industry. Last year alone, Bay of Plenty’s Oceanside Homes, two South Auckland developers and Wellington’s Armstrong Downes Commercial went under. The Herald has reported how this paints a worrying picture of the pain that’s coming for the construction industry.

The latest BCI table was based on work the builders started in 2022 and it said the top 50 builders had 488 projects that fit into that category.

The top 10 had 167 of those projects.

Michelle Aizenberg, BCI chief data officer, said at the time the league table was released that it showed the strength of the sector.

“Despite the mounting challenges, numerous new companies got their start and thousands of projects commenced construction across the country. NZ’s builders are persisting and adapting to meet the unwavering commercial and residential market demand,” Aizenberg said.

Those 10 firms started just under $5.8b worth of projects last year, with an average project value of approximately $124.5m.

“While 2022 saw restrictions lifted in most parts of New Zealand, the ripples of the pandemic continued to impact the construction industry. Shortages and severe cost increases in skilled labour and supplies caused project delays, cancellations and the collapse of numerous companies in the sector,” Aizenberg said.

So who are numbers 11 to 20 with billions of dollars worth of work on the go?

The large Macrennie Construction, headquartered in Auckland, with a long and established history, leads the tier two league.

That league also includes Christchurch-headquartered Williams Corporation. The firm often hits the headlines and is a specialist apartment and townhouse developer that originally sprang from the huge opportunity earthquakes created in its home city, with so many empty inner-city sites yet high demand for affordable new homes. Since then, Williams has expanded overseas, with the aim of becoming the largest builder of its type in New Zealand.

Names like Watts & Hughes, KBS Construction and Aspec are also on the list featured here.

League two, numbers 11 to 20 top NZ builders

Here are the next 10, according to workloads started last year, with details about who’s running these businesses, which sectors they excel in and some of their most prominent projects. BCI said its data is based on its own research, as well as submissions from builders.

“We have excluded companies who declined to be listed in the league. The civil, infrastructure, transport, utilities, energy, and mining, oil and gas sectors have been excluded, as these are areas that warrant separate attention,” BCI said.

They said the list showcased New Zealand’s construction potential.

11. Macrennie Construction

BCI listed this builder as having 13 active projects, with an $18m average project value and $246m total project value in hand as of April.

Founded more than 40 years ago, the company says its projects show its capability as a commercial building contractor. Its head office is on Walls Rd, Penrose.

Tim O’Leary, Macrennie managing director, told the Herald in 2021 that the largest building his business had built was Foodstuff’s new headquarters: the vast curved-shaped award-winning warehouse/offices at The Landings near the airport. That structure was 74,000sq m or 7.4ha of indoor floor space, largely because it is a distribution centre as much as it is the head office of Foodstuffs North Island.

In 2021, staff moved into New Zealand’s biggest new building, equivalent to eight rugby fields.

Chris Quin, Foodstuffs North Island chief executive, said two new buildings and the site at Māngere leased for 30 years from Auckland Airport were then staffed early that year. The ambient distribution centre was stocked and had by far the largest footprint of any building in this country, he said.

The centre where 350 people work stands beside the new 9000sq m headquarters or support office, where around 950 people work on the same site at 35 The Landing Dr. Quin said the new centre replaced eight buildings including in Rotorua, to centralise grocery distribution operations in the country’s most densely populated area of the upper North Island.

Goods for more than 100 of Foodstuffs North Island’s 153 supermarkets are serviced from the new 7.8ha distribution centre. The business has another DC in Palmerston North.

Supermarket work is a bit of a speciality with Macrennie, which has developed excellent relations with both sides of our duopoly.

The Herald featured a Macrennie project in 2021 when we visited a new 2ha Countdown chilled fresh produce storehouse.

The new $150m fresh produce distribution centre was developed for the supermarket giant at Wiri.

Matthew Grainger, Woolworths NZ’s acting property general manager, showed progress at the site where Macrennie Commercial Construction was then building the storehouse with a 2ha indoor floor area.

That building at 11 Puaki Dr was designed to centralise Countdown’s fresh product operations in Auckland, replacing Palmerston North and Mt Wellington premises, Grainger said. At Mt Wellington, Countdown had a contract on its fresh produce with Turners & Growers.

12. Apollo Projects

BCI listed this builder as having eight jobs, each with an average $27m and all up $217m worth of work in jobs started since 2022.

Craig Waghorn and Paul Lloyd started the firm in 2001, Apollo’s website says. And it has some big-name clients.

“We regularly work with major national companies and organisations, including Fonterra, Ngāi Tahu, Goodman Fielder, George Western Foods and Lion Co as well as private owner-operated businesses, sports organisations councils and Government agencies,” Apollo says.

It named the stunning Amisfield Winery among its completed projects, having provided the construction management and winery services design and delivery for the two-level, gravity-fed pinot noir winery in Central Otago. The winery utilises the latest processing technology and is designed to process 600 tonnes of fruit.

13. Williams Corporation

Lucky number 13 is listed by BCI as having 26 projects started in the last year, each with an average value of just $6.9m but total work of $181m.

The most widely covered in the media out of this second league is this business, prominent partly because of their founders being extremely active social media users in their late 20s.

Matthew Horncastle and Blair Chappel named the company from their eponymous middle names.

Horncastle said “no comment” when asked to talk about the business.

But he has talked extensively in the past and described his ambition to grow the business substantially. Last year, the Herald reported on how the company became NZ’s biggest privately-owned non-franchised house builder. Then, The company was named by BCI Central as second only to the franchised national housebuilder GJ Gardner.

From March 2022 to February this year, Williams Corporation built 666 new homes, compared to GJ Gardner’s 1241, BCI’s figures showed.

In the year to October 2021, Williams Corporation built 761 homes, mostly townhouses. GJ Gardner built 1645 homes and, although Williams’ output is less than half the largest builder, it’s been a steep rise.

Matthew and Blair met in 2003 when their families were holidaying in the Marlborough Sounds with Geoff Ball, who now supplies all Williams’ windows, Horncastle said last January.

14. Watts & Hughes Construction

BCI listed this company as having 20 jobs on, with the projects having an average of $8.9m and a total of $179m work in hand.

This business was established in Auckland in 1984 and Tauranga in 2004 but those branches amalgamated in 2010. The 2011 Canterbury earthquakes prompted the builder to extend into that region and tender for jobs in the rebuild.

It now has a national reach.

“In the Auckland region, Watts & Hughes offers a range of construction management services while in the Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Gisborne and Wellington regions the management services are augmented by a more hands-on approach to also include the supply of some of the required construction trades. In the Canterbury region, Watts & Hughes offers its range of construction management services to assist with the rebuild of Christchurch City and the surrounding areas. Over time, the Christchurch team has branched out across the South Island, and is currently providing services to the West Coast, Otago and the Marlborough region,” the company says.

In May and June, it listed the most recent work. This included the $30m Rolleston College expansion for the Ministry of Education, a design-and-build project involving a new teaching block, an extension to the existing gymnasium and enclosing an existing hard tech area.

Canterbury’s Wairakei School redevelopment includes a new administration block, refurbishment and conversion works to an existing block and some demolition of the old library block. The works are being completed in two separable portions/stages because the school is remaining open while this all happens.

15. Canam Group

This builder has 14 jobs on, worth an average $27m and totalling $217m, BCI said. The firm is headed by Loukas Petrou, whose interests also include upmarket popular Waiheke Island’s Cable Bay Vineyard.

“The company was born in west Auckland in 1955 by two Westie founders,” Canam Group says.

Andy Bonnar and Kelvin Gill initially called the business Bonnar Gill.

“Graeme Cameron joined the company in the 1960s and inspired by the acclaimed New Zealand race-car designer and driver, Bruce McLaren, Graeme established Canam commending Bruce’s formidable win of the Can-Am cup in 1967,” the builder explains.

In 2006, Petrou and Nick Page took over the operation of Canam “and wasted no time in growing the company further to become one of the top contractors in the Auckland region, with an enviable track record for delivering projects on time to budget”.

After Auckland’s success, it expanded into the Bay of Plenty.

Canam says it has now completed more than $1b of projects. Townhouses on Ormiston Rd in south Auckland, a $13.8m project at Selwyn Heights and the $13.8m Whangarei Hospital maternity unit job are just some of the many on its website.

“After Nick’s retirement in 2017, Stephen Jones became a director and Canam continues to go from strength to strength, with a Northland office established in 2020,” the building business says.

The Can-Am Cup’s last race was in the 1970s but this eponymous business “continues to be a top racer in the roaring construction industry”.

16. KBS Construction

This residential specialist has just four jobs worth an average $37m, totalling around $150m worth of work started last year, BCI’s table said.

The builder lists its offices as being on the Shore and it’s associated with one huge scheme at Takapuna.

It specialises in project management and co-ordination of residential construction projects. A focus has been at Hobsonville Point with Kingstone Property on the Hobson Green scheme, 133 Clark Rd. This has a variety of homes in it including standalone, duplexes, terraced places and apartments as well as some offices.

KBS Capital is developing a former Takapuna church site into apartment towers.

Their Amaia apartments project is planned to comprise 15 buildings up to 16 levels, with architects comparing the scheme to the profile of a famous French island.

KBS Capital, owned by Brilliant Stone, is developing the former church site, which straddles a thin strip between the Waitematā and 48 Esmonde Rd, which is the main exit and entrance to the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

Master planning for the 15-building scheme is indicative only and the buildings are yet to be designed fully, KBS says.

Jasmax likened the higher building form in the centre of 15 new buildings to the much-loved Mont-Saint-Michel in its planned built-appearance form.

Two seven-level buildings are in that first $350m, 543-unit stage, now under construction. Those were marketed last year, with plans showing a third building.

17. Reco Construction

Reco has nine jobs, an average construction value of $12.8m and $115.4m worth of work in hand, according to BCI.

The builder, run by Chinese New Zealanders, says it “specialises in creating medium- to high-density residential and light commercial developments in New Zealand. The scale of our projects varies from 30 units to 150 units, and over 300 units are constructed each year”.

Reco works under the design-and-build model, some of its multi-unit projects being at 1 Mangahoe Rd, Mt Wellington, Rosier Rd in Glen Eden, Avondale’s Larch St, Te Atatu’s Matipo Rd, Schnapper Rock Rd at Greenhithe and Rosyth Ave in Bayswater on the Shore.

“Reco Construction specialises in creating medium- to high-density residential and light commercial developments in New Zealand. The scale of our projects varies from 30 units to 150 units, and over 300 units are constructed each year,” the business says.

18. Aspec Construction

Eight jobs, with an average value of $14.05m and a total workload of $112.4m, are listed by BCI.

The builder was established in 1986 and cites a wide range of completed construction projects from retirement, recreational and educational buildings to medical centres, as well as refurbishments of historic buildings.

It lists retirement centre Selwyn Village, Metlifecare’s The Orchards and works at Onehunga Mall as some of its projects.

Countdown Warkworth, Epsom Girls’ Grammar school’s gym and the seismic upgrade of the chapel at Diocesan School for Girls in Epsom are some other projects Aspec lists.

19. Fosters Construction

This builder also has eight jobs, an average value per job of $13.3m and a total workload of $106m, BCI’s table showed.

Fosters has offices in Hamilton and Tauranga and says: “We focus on projects in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty where we have strong relationships and supply networks. Anyone with a shareholding in the Foster Group must work in the business. We have 11 employees with company shareholdings among our different business units.”

A new building for Rabobank in Hamilton, a new Altus aluminium extrusion plant and an architecturally designed BYD electric vehicle showroom in Tauranga are some of its recent projects.

New Waikato buildings for Mitre 10 Mega and Steel & Tube, and Bay of Plenty buildings for Metlifecare, Harvey Norman and The Village Omokoroa are listed by Fosters as being “on the go”.

The builder says 15 per cent of the company is owned by the Foster Group Trust “ which means that 15 per cent of our profits are invested back into the community”.

20. Mike Greer Commercial

This firm has a big workload of 19 jobs on, the projects having an average of $5.5m and the combined total project value being $104m, according to BCI.

Retirement, commercial, multi-unit residential and social or community housing are specialisations the builder lists.

“Mike Greer Commercial was established as part of the Mike Greer group of companies in 2016. Like our sister company, Mike Greer Homes, which has been designing and building homes for more than 25 years, we have a strong presence throughout New Zealand and a reputation for delivering well-constructed, future-ready, sustainable projects,” this builder says.

This builder has Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch offices.

Multi-unit housing developments in Christchurch’s Hinemoa St, Selwyn St, Edgeware Rd, Webb St and Sherborne St appear as some of its projects, along with large-scale residential developments in Porirua, Point Chevalier, Whangārei and Papatoetoe.

Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 23 years, having won many awards, and covered property extensively here and overseas. She joined the Herald in 2000.