SKYCITY has signalled a probable legal fight with contractor Fletcher Construction over the delay to the completion of the New Zealand International Convention Centre (NZICC).
In its interim results released today, SKYCITY said the delivery date of mid-2019 of the NZICC and Hobson Street hotel projects would be six months after the contracted date of January that year. That is double the initial three month delay announced last year.
SKYCITY chief executive Graeme Stephens told the Ticker this morning his company was entitled to claim damages because of the delay, which he had always considered to be six months.
“We are flagging that now because we are getting to the phase of the construction where the end is in sight,” he said.
“Nothing is currently happening but we are flagging the liquidated damages that we are entitled to and, simultaneously, Fletchers, which would be likely to challenge our ability to claim them.”
In its interim results, SKYCITY said: “We remain comfortable with our contractual arrangements, which provide for liquidated damages that should mitigate our losses through delay, but legal challenges from Fletcher Construction are possible.”
Stephens added he wanted to be transparent about the possibility of legal action as “there is going to be some degree of claiming and counterclaiming when we get to the end”.
The delay followed ructions at Fletcher Construction last year, which saw its share price plunge in July after a profit downgrade and the immediate departure of its chief executive, Mark Adamson.
SKYCITY said today it had noted a “positive change” over the past six months in the construction of its two projects with Fletchers.
“The overall programme is well advanced with the core of the Hobson Street hotel now up to the eighth floor (of thirteen) and the slab for the final floor in the NZICC nearing completion,” said the company.
“Overall, we expect our investment in the projects to be in-line with our original budget. We continue to escalate our sales and marketing efforts to confirm the pipeline of convention bookings and, pleasingly, we have secured six major international conferences for 2020.”
It just came to me that since I have been offering up buys and sells for a 5th of my life on this ere blog that I explain what I mean when I say you should really think about purchasing/investing this share soon. Basically I see a share as a unit of storage. That is a storage of income to either add back to your portfolio or add to your pocket. The cheaper you can get that storage for the better. I have 7 stocks in my basic portfolio some of them were bought with the purpose of income - SKC, CEN & HLG - and some were bought for increasing DIVs and capital gain AIA,FPH,MFT & RYM. Currently they are all doing what they should, the 3 former are all reasonably low in share price and the 4 latter are all relatively expensive. Once again I will not sell no matter what happens - I will only sell when something material happens with each specific company. So the indicator there for today's market is that you tred very carefully before you purchase a share/company. Likewise when I give an indication of what to buy in a down market, I think i tends to be a little less cautious about price - because your simply getting the storage for a lot less than you get it in an up market so its silly to quibble over a few cents. Why not give an indication to buy only during a stock market downturn? Well I do as a general rule I have bought anything substantial since 2012. I do however see value in specific shares during the ups and the downs. I buy these. I have bought a number of shares since 2012 but I have never held them with the intention of holding them long term. Having said that there are 2 shares that I have bought - CEN and HLG - that I did buy between 2012 and 2014 that I have held and I didn't intend to keep them at all, except perhaps CEN a little bit - always liked this share since I first bought it in 1998 for $3.10. What i'm saying is you need to be flexible especially now a days things are changing so fast. AND you can do this all yourself. All it takes is half an hour each day to do some reading - my blog esp - and your set. Go for it. www.shareinvestorforum.com c Share Investor 2018
