Naylor Love forecasts a 115-year record $1.04b revenue: Building five $200m+ projects
Queenstown, Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkables viewed from the top of the Skyline gondola, where Naylor Love is working. Photo / Mark Mitchell
National privately owned New Zealand builder Naylor Love is forecasting it will make $1.04 billion in annual revenue in its current year, the most in its 115-year history.
Chief executive Bruno Goedeke said that despite the economic downturn, which has hit his sector hard, the company, which employs about 1000 staff, expected to break financial records.
“In 115 years, we have never had more than $1b revenue annually. People ask me how that’s possible when times are so tough. We do well where there’s complexity,” he said, citing Skyline Queenstown, the Wellington Town Hall redevelopment and a new University of Auckland building, among others.
The $1.04b is anticipated revenue for the year to June 30, 2026.
But Goedeke said it could top that because new contracts were continually being won and work started.
A limited number of big national contractors could complete complex construction jobs, he said.
The South African immigrant has worked for the company for 20 years and featured last year in a Herald profile in which he told of initially holidaying here in the late 1990s.
He was so impressed by this country that moving was an obvious choice.
Naylor Love’s accounts are not publicly available.
Goedeke could not supply net after-tax profit but said the company was profitable.
He declared revenue as:
- 2021: $700m
- 2022: $825m
- about $950m in 2023, 2024, 2025
Previous CEO Rick Herd forecast the company would break the $1b revenue barrier in the year to June 30, 2024.
But Goedeke said this month that had not happened.
However, Herd led the company to expand fast, increasing revenue from $250m around 2014 to around $950m by the time he retired in early 2024.
Last year, Naylor Love was named New Zealand’s biggest builder based on the value of work it won in 2023.
The BCI Construction League Report said the company restoring Christ Church Cathedral and building New Zealand’s first Ikea at Mt Wellington had started $820 million worth of work in 2023.
Its projects had an average value of $10.9m.
Goedeke said Naylor Love’s five biggest current projects, each worth more than $200m, are:
- Skyline Queenstown gondola and buildings redevelopment;
- Auckland University’s new 13-level B230 academic tower;
- Fisher & Paykel Appliances’ new global headquarters, Penrose
- $329m Wellington Town Hall redevelopment, of which the builder’s portion is just over $200m;
- Ikea at Sylvia Park, nearly completed, opens December 4.
Yet, some losses
Not all the jobs it has won are proceeding.
At Westgate, the builder has trucked out portacoms from the Amazon data centre site.
Back in September, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said, “This is an incredible story, right?”
The arrival of the trillion-dollar-plus Amazon would bring a $7.5b investment in New Zealand, Luxon said.
Yet two months later, instead of doing the groundwork, Naylor Love has taken its buildings from 73 Fred Taylor Drive.
Goedeke explained: “That job has been put on hold. We took all the portacoms because it’s on hold for quite some time – long enough that we disestablished there.”
Two prosecutions
The builder has been prosecuted twice lately:
- Naylor Love and developer John Love’s company, Civic Lane, were fined $35,000 in the Environment Court for illegal modifications to the top level of Auckland apartment development The CAB;
- Naylor Love, Skyline Enterprises and Wilson Contractors pleaded guilty in the Queenstown Lakes District Court to offending at the gondola job, after a significant debris flow in 2023 following heavy rain. Sentencing is due next month.
Goedeke said it would be inappropriate for him to comment on either of those cases.
$800m prison expansion
The biggest job the company has tendered for in its 115-year history is the Department of Corrections’ planned $800m expansion of Christchurch Men’s Prison at Yaldhurst.
The builder is in a consortium, the Ōtautahi Partnership, with others. That consortium is one of three tendering for the job. The winner is due to be announced next year.
Goedeke says the company has coped with the downturn by keeping skilled people in the business and having good relationships with clients.
Own do-up
It also recently renovated its own Auckland headquarters at Glenfield’s Diana Drive.
Goedeke now has a larger office with a six-seat meeting table: “We spent too much. I’ve always had a small office, but the design team said you need a meeting table. Everyone laughs about the expansion!”
Ikea Mt Wellington
The construction contract the Swedish-headquartered giant struck with New Zealand contractors was unusual.
“We’ve never done a contract like that before. It’s very uncommon in New Zealand, however, not uncommon in Europe,” Goedeke said.
Ikea offered those bidding to build its Auckland store a management contract. That meant procurement was different.
“Naylor Love worked as part of the Ikea team. It wasn’t the client separated from the contractor. It was basically one and working together,” Goedeke said.
Ikea sent construction project manager Sean Schmidt from Australia to head its operations during design and building. Comment was sought but he declined to speak to the Herald about the process.
Christ Church Cathedral
A new plan for this long-stalled job gives Goedeke hope that Naylor Love will return – but not till 2027.
The cathedral restoration would be split in half: one half accessible, the other made good but left inaccessible and unfinished in the meantime.
The builder would restore the tower, nave areas, western wall and rose window, making available a space for 700 people seated.
“Given there’s not enough money to finish it all, this is a very clever idea,” Goedeke said.
Asked how he felt about the cathedral, he said it was pride in the accomplishments, mixed with sadness about the work stopping.
But for the current year, he hopes for that billion-dollar milestone.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald‘s property editor for 25 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.
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