PHOTO: Shareholders say Fletcher Building isn’t taking responsibility for the shortage of a key building product. (Source: 1News)
There are calls for the board chair of Fletcher Building to go, and the entire board be put up for re-election, in the wake of New Zealand’s GIB supply crisis,
Simplicity Living, which holds around $35 million worth of Fletcher shares, and the Shareholders Association, are also calling for an external review of the culture and risk practices at the company, which through its Winstone Wallboards subsidiary holds a 94% stranglehold on plasterboard supply in New Zealand.
The GIB shortage has caused major delays in the construction industry, with builders speaking of their inability to source product and major delays on projects.
Simplicity, the Shareholder Association and Fletcher chief executive Ross Taylor held a please-explain meeting in Auckland on Friday, after which Shareholders Association’s Oliver Mander said Fletcher showed a lack of humility and did not apologise for its role in the situation.
Concerns were raised about the company’s ability to spot and deal with risk.
Late last week, Winstone Wallboards said it would be able to supply merchant customers with one million square metres of extra plasterboard from July through to September, and on Friday Taylor told 1News the company should have thought harder about establishing an emergency pool of products.
It was doing all it can to maximise production.
Simplicity and the Shareholder Association weren’t satisfied with what they heard however, on Monday calling for board chair Bruce Hassall to resign immediately, and board to make themselves eligible for re-election at the company’s annual shareholders meeting later in the year.
“We note that the board is light on relevant building sector experience,” it said in a letter to Hassall.
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