|
|
Former staff meet for the last time to remember with pride one of the most illustrious companies the construction industry has ever known – Wilkins & Davies. By GAVIN RILEY
There was optimistic talk during what was a four-hour verbal stroll down memory lane that they might meet again; but the invitation to attend had been specific – this was to be the 20th and final annual reunion of those lucky enough to have on their curriculum vitae that they once worked for the New Zealand construction superstar of yesteryear, Wilkins & Davies. Taking the invitation at its word, company leaders Des Mataga and Tony Mills (pictured) made a point of attending, visibly pleased to be able to reminisce one last time with loyal staff whose extra-mile efforts had helped maintain a second-to-none culture of excellence. For 46 years Wilkins & Davies marched in the vanguard of construction in this country. But after a battle royal to overcome mounting financial pressures throughout 1989, the company went into receivership late that year, sending a mixture of shock, dismay and sadness reverberating through the industry. The business had its beginnings in 1940 when 28-year-old Christchurch house builder Jack Wilkins formed a partnership with Ray Davies and moved the enterprise’s base to Wellington. It became a public company in 1943.
The company landed several other million-pound contracts during that period, including (in a joint venture with the Royal Netherlands Harbour Works Co in 1959) construction of the Freyberg wharf in Auckland, where the assistant engineer was a young Des Mataga, newly returned from nearly three years with a hydro-electric consultancy in Canada. Over the next 30 years there was hardly a corner of New Zealand which could not claim to have had its infrastructure enhanced by Wilkins & Davies, whether through the addition of a bridge, road, dam, marina, commercial or industrial building, university, school, hospital or other structure. The projects are far too numerous to mention but, selected at random, they included the Shell building in Wellington and the AMP, Norwich Union, Barclays House and Century Towers buildings in Auckland; a runway at Auckland international airport; the Mohaka, Waiwera and Moonshine bridges; the Mangatawhiri, Hunua and Matai dams; a steel rolling mill at Otahuhu; the Newmarket viaduct, Thorndon overbridge and Waterloo transport interchange; various major works at the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter and Clyde Dam; the Marsden Point refinery expansion (as a partner in Marsden Refinery Constructors); the Waihi power scheme; pulp-mill modernisation at Kinleith; the Mt Smart stadium grandstand; and the Orakei wharf replacement, which won a Contractors’ Federation construction award in 1985.
Certainly there seemed no undue cause for alarm as many New Zealand businesses, including fellow construction giant McConnell Dowell, were finding it hard to trade their way out of the recession that had followed the sharemarket crash. Wilkins & Davies began 1989 in an optimistic mood, having nearly completed a $50 million office block in central Christchurch and having won contracts to build a $45 million cargo terminal in Napier and a $25 million shopping complex in Porirua. It had approvals to build more marinas (a field in which it excelled), its Australian operations were well established, and its prospects for civil and heavy mechanical construction were way ahead of the previous year. Around mid-1989, however, the company announced a back-to-basics approach (which it later reported was proving exhausting and time-consuming) to return it to the solid construction business it had been a decade earlier. The changes included divestment of all non-construction investments and assets, and the winding-up of all offshore operations.
Contractor described the company’s achievement in a headline as “a towering performance” and said it featured a new method of construction in New Zealand, incorporating an electric-hydraulic steel platform that rose from the structure unsupported from below. The project also involved the first use in this country of epoxy-coated reinforcement and a specially formulated sulphate-resistant cement. Alas, this standard-setting achievement was not matched by Wilkins & Davies’ financial performance. In late October it reported a loss of $28 million for the March 31 year and said its results were being affected by the failure or inability of other companies to honour contractual commitments, including the recent demise of project funder DFC New Zealand.
Managing director Des Mataga, who had been with the company for 30 years, headed Fletcher Construction’s operations in Hong Kong for two years before returning home to Auckland to become a consultant, a role he retired from only recently. Construction director Tony Mills pursued other business interests, including land and property development. Engineers Bernard Hough, Peter White and Dick Salter (who has organised all the annual reunions) now occupy senior positions with Downer EDI Works, while Ken Tanner, Neill Forgie, Alan Ladlow, Dick Moore and quantity survey Chris Lapish are still active in the industry. And Derek Wigzell became first a consultant quantity surveyor then the highly popular secretary of the Auckland branch of the Contractors’ Federation, as well as cartoonist for Contractor, until his untimely death in early 2009.
“We were working to quality-assurance manuals in the 1970s and 1980s that are still in operation now,” one man said quietly, as he looked with nostalgia at the few displayed pictorial and written records that are just about the only history remaining of the once-famous Wilkins & Davies. The receivers got the rest of the firm.”
Contractor Vol.34 No.1 February 2010 |
On a Sunday afternoon shortly before Christmas 40 or so middle-aged-to-elderly men and a few women, some accompanied by partners, met in a small suburban Auckland hall. It was a bitter-sweet gathering for they were there not only to say hello but in many cases goodbye.
During the war years Wilkins & Davies Construction Co, as it was then known, was engaged for some of the time in defence works, but in the postwar era it established North and South Island branches and formed electrical and mechanical divisions as it expanded into all phases of building and civil engineering, culminating in the construction of the £2 million Manukau sewage purification plant.
Annually through the 1980s Wilkins & Davies posted record profits until beyond the sharemarket crash in late 1987. But in mid-1988 Des Mataga noted ominously that in the previous nine months there had been more uncertainty and upheaval in the New Zealand economy than at any time in the company’s long history. He later reported that the first half of 1988 had been “difficult” due to factors beyond the company’s control but that the indications were 1989 would be better.
In August the company underscored its reputation for expertise, excellence and innovation by winning the Contractors’ Federation construction award for building the Ohaaki natural-draft cooling tower, a 105-metre-high structure with a base diameter of 70 metres narrowing to 40 metres at the “waist” and opening out to 45 metres at the top. Despite the tower’s size, the wall is as thin as 160mm for much of its height.
In early December Wilkins & Davies went into receivership after six banks refused to support its six months of efforts to restructure itself and return to core activities. The abrupt end left a plethora of unfinished and some yet-to-be started contracts, including re-creation of the pink-and-white terraces destroyed in the 1886 Mt Tarawera eruption. Fortunately, some of Wilkins & Davies’ 450 staff were taken on by companies which took over the unfinished work.
Derek’s wife Jean and daughter Mindy attended the final staff reunion, where they would have been buoyed by the Wigzell-type humour which pervaded the shared recollections of happy days. There was a lot of pride on show too at having been part of a business which inspired its people to enviably high levels of performance.