Relief as Infracon staff retain jobs

Central Hawke's Bay Mayor Peter Butler

Central Hawke's Bay Mayor Peter Butler says it is "great news" that almost all remaining staff of failed council-owned contracting firm Infracon have kept their jobs after the business was bought by another contracting firm.

Infracon was put into liquidation by its shareholders, the Tararua District Council and CHB District Council, in August after the company's bank withdrew financial support, following five years of losses, totalling almost $7 million.

More than 90 staff were made redundant, with approximately 100 continuing to be employed by the company as liquidators PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) worked to find a buyer.

In October, PwC announced it had entered into a conditional sale and purchase agreement for the going concern sale of the business to Higgins Aggregates, a subsidiary of Higgins Group Holdings, a large civil engineering company with locations throughout the country.

The sale became unconditional this month with one of the more public signs of the change of ownership being new Higgins sign-writing appearing on the company's fleet of vehicles.

Mr Butler said he understood "one or two" of the remaining Infracon workforce may have lost their jobs following the change of ownership but almost all had been kept on "and that's the main thing".

PwC liquidator Tony Pattison could not be reached yesterday but said in October if the sale to Higgins went ahead as expected, Infracon's secured creditors and all preferential claims would be fully paid.

The liquidators also expected to be in a position to make a distribution to unsecured creditors following the sale although the quantum and timing of this distribution could only be determined once the sale was finalised.