Blair Chappell and Matthew Horncastle of Williams Corporation charter private jets to move staff around. Photo / Supplied
Blair Chappell and Matthew Horncastle of Williams Corporation charter private jets to move staff around. Photo / Supplied
New Zealand’s busiest privately-owned residential developer, Williams Corporation, is offering redundancy to 10 to 30 per cent of its staff here, in Australia and in Asia due to the housing market downturn.
In the starkest sign yet of how deep the housing market crunch has become, the company founded by29-year-olds Matthew Horncastle and Blair Chappell has asked staff who wants to go.
The high-flying Christchurch-headquartered business has grown extremely fast since 2017 to become a huge force in the apartment and townhouse sector, building 1500 residences. It was founded in 2011 but developing since 2017.
“At the peak of the market last year we sold 800 houses in a rolling 12 months. We were aiming for 1600/year. This year, we have sold 500 houses in a rolling 12 months so we are over-staffed,” Horncastle told the Herald tonight.
“So if anyone doesn’t enjoy their role or doesn’t want to be here, we’ll pay you an extra one month’s pay to take redundancy. We’re planning to restructure our overheads by 10 to 30 per cent.”
In a letter to staff sent on Tuesday and obtained by the Herald, Horncastle said: “It will likely be proposed that a restructure and/or “right sizing” of the business is required in order to adapt to market conditions, which may include a reduction in overheads by approximately 15-30 per cent to match our expected work in progress and activity.
“It is important to note that no decision has been made about the restructure mentioned above and, prior to any restructure occurring, a full proposal document will be circulated to any potentially affected employees for consultation, discussion and feedback.”
Addressing customers, Horncastle says “all staffing and resources required to deliver your home as expected will not be affected and you have no cause for concern”.
The company has around 200 staff in New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and the Philippines. Of those, around 120 are employed in New Zealand.
Horncastle said it could have redundancies of 20 to 60 people.
Blair Chappell and Matthew Horncastle: Christchurch men, both 29, founded the country's busiest privately-owned residential developer. Photo / Supplied
He expects around 40 staff might take up the offer, “but remember that’s not just in NZ, it’s Asia as well”.
“When you have sales that have got smaller, you need to match your business accordingly and the best way to start is by people who don’t want to be there so they can go into a different industry,” Horncastle said.
If sales do pick up, the process will be paused and the business was seeing good signs going into a warm summer market, he said.
The letter to staff is titled “Voluntary redundancy proposal” and was marked “private and confidential”.
Redundancies were being offered as a direct result of the current operating environment and market conditions, it said, and senior management was in the process of conducting a full audit of the business to ensure it was continuing to trade safely and responsibly.
House values are continuing to fall, according to Nick Goodall, research head at CoreLogic.
September’s 1.5 per cent drop in national values slowed to 1.3 per cent in October but that was no immediate cause for optimism or thinking a turnaround was on.
Average house values nationally were $954,202 in October, down from $977,158 in September. Auckland’s average house value of $1.38 million in September fell to $1.36m last month.
Goodall warned of further interest rate rises.
The annual rate of change has now fallen into the negatives, only a year after experiencing the strongest rate of growth on record at 28.8 per cent in the year to the end of October 2021.
Meanwhile, Williams staff have been flown in a charter white-leather-seat Bombardier Challenger 604 jet from Christchurch’s GCH Aviation for a fortnightly return Christchurch-Wellington-Auckland staff trip, the Herald reported in January.
“We bulk buy 100 hours at a time. I’ve always wanted to fly in a private jet,” Horncastle told the Herald at the time.
Horncastle is co-owner with Blair Chappell. The company was named by a BCI Central report earlier this year as second only to the franchised national housebuilder G.J. Gardner.
Williams built homes at 14 Nova Place, Christchurch. Photo / Supplied
Williams is now the second-largest housebuilder by annual number of homes completed but Horncastle says it’s the biggest privately owned house builder in New Zealand.
It’s the busiest privately-owned house builder in this country, BCI found.
Matthew Horncastle is the son of Bill Horncastle whose eponymous business, Horncastle Homes, was prominent and busy in the Garden City for years until it was shut in 2017 when Bill retired.
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 went to Nelson College, and worked for Bill at Horncastle Builders from 2011 till 2013. He did a building apprenticeship: “The duo were friends growing up. However, they only started a business together because of an efficient connection and mindset that created high business productivity,” the company says.
Chappell studied at what is now Ara Institute of Canterbury and has a bachelor’s degree in information and communications technology. He worked part-time at McDonald’s to support himself.
The pair established businesses in contract building, temporary fencing, waste management, solar panels and composite decking, and Horncastle says his father’s only help was to guarantee a $20,000 credit card - but does acknowledge how important the connections from his father are to him.
