Fletcher bid to be part of city's $4.9b build boom

Graham Darlow, head of Fletcher Construction, at the company's Great South Rd site in Auckland. Photo / Greg Bowker

Fletcher Construction has a record $2 billion order book but that could get a big boost if it forms alliances with other global businesses to win some of the $4.9 billion worth of Auckland work starting soon.

Graham Darlow, chief executive, said his firm would bid for the $2.4 billion City Rail Link, $760 million Puhoi to Wellsford motorway extension job, $402 million NZ International Convention Centre and the Precinct Properties' $300 million Downtown redevelopment.

"This is good news for the construction industry, building back to the levels before the global financial crisis and it's good for the New Zealand economy," he said, appearing in a Herald video talking about the scope of his work.

On Monday, Waterview tunnel boring machine Alice is due to break through the northern wall at the end of the first tunnel. Fletcher is in a consortium on that job and Darlow said it would make sense for his firm to move from there to CRL because it had the capacity to take on such huge projects. Darlow said it had the equipment, skills, staff and expertise and in the past year alone, Fletcher Building had trained 5500 existing staff so it had no problems bidding for $4.9 billion worth of work.

"There's quite a bit of spare capacity in New Zealand in employment and developing our own people into new roles," he said.

Acciona of Spain, France's Vinci Construction, Spain's Ferrovial and Europe's OHL were all big firms which Fletcher might join with to win the $4.9 billion work.

"These are very large international construction companies with experience in public private partnerships. These companies would provide much more in the way of funding and creating special purpose vehicles. We will provide the design and construction skills.

"These global businesses are able to manage PPPs through their term because most of the PPPs are 25 years long," he said.

Next year, Fletcher will lodge its bid for the Puhoi to Wellsford highway extension in work for the NZ Transport Agency, extending State Highway 1 from its current end point at the Johnstone's Hill tunnels. Construction is due to start between 2016 and 2019 and finish between 2022 and 2025.

"We're not bidding yet but we are going through pre-qualification stages now and we will bid in the first half of next year," he said.

SecureFuture which includes Fletcher is finishing Kohuora, the new $300 million 960-bed South Auckland men's prison on a 17ha Wiri site at Kiwi Tamaki Rd.

"New Zealand leads the world in this sector and a lot is to do with the big agencies like NZTA and Department of Corrections which have very sophisticated procurement models," Darlow said.

The consortium, which included Fletcher, lost its bid to build Transmission Gully, a job which went to rival builder Leighton Construction, also in a consortium.

Darlow said big infrastructure works were now completed on time and budget, compared to last century when they were often dogged by industrial disputes, injuries, late delivery and cost overruns.