Fletcher Building CEO Ross Taylor’s SkyCity Convention Centre frustration, fire insurance fight

Name: Markets with Madison: Fletcher Building’s frustrations
Uploaded: 2023-08-21T08:30:00+12:00
Description: The cost to finish the plagued NZ International Convention Centre has hit $1 billion. Here’s what Fletcher Building’s CEO Ross Taylor really thinks about it. Video / NZ Herald

By Madison Reidy

Senior Business Journalist, host of Markets with Madison·NZ Herald·

20 Aug, 2023 10:06 PM2 mins to read

The cost to finish the plagued NZ International Convention Centre has hit $1 billion. Here’s what Fletcher Building’s CEO Ross Taylor really thinks about it. Video / NZ Herald

Fletcher Building’s chief executive is willing to take insurers to court over a $105 million unpaid claim to repair the troubled New Zealand International Convention Centre for SkyCity.

Speaking to Markets with Madison, Ross Taylor explained the excess still on the table - which was about one-third of the $255m extra required to finish the now $1 billion project by the end of 2024.

“The Convention Centre’s really frustrating. While I think we’re doing a good job to finish it off, it’s still hurting everybody - the business, the shareholders.”

Taylor said the project was absolutely unprofitable. It was delayed by around six years, although he’d lost exact count.

It caused the company to post a 45 per cent drop in annual net profit for the year ended June. Its share price fell more than 11 per cent after the result last week.

Watch Taylor discuss the NZICC project, as well as price increases in its building products division, in today’s episode of Markets with Madison above.

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Madison Reidy is the host of New Zealand’s only financial markets show Markets with Madison. She joined the Herald in 2022 after working in investment, and has covered business and economics for television and radio broadcasters.