Era ends in Paynter sale

Press, 23 November 1988, Page 41

Era ends in Paynter sale

An era ends for the Christchurch construction industry today when the building equipment of Paynter Construction is auctioned.

Paynter Construction, now part of Paynter Corporation, a listed Christchurch holding company, has been in the construction business for 75 years. Paynter Corporation’s managing director, Mr Robin Hughes, said, yesterday that the auction meant that Paynter’s was out of the construction industry in New Zealand. The company was still involved in the building of Robt Jones Investment house, on the corner of Colombo Street and Armagh Street, with the work now contracted to Fletcher Construction and Development. The last project completed by Paynter Construction was the Clarendon Towers, he said.

The Towers was completed and opened earlier this month, and Paynter Corporation also announced the sale of the building to Japanese in-

terests for $3B million. The company had described the Clarendon Towers as a SSOM building, but it was caught up in the sharp downturn in the commercial building sector late last year. The sharp drop in the commercial property market has also meant that building construction activity has dried up, the reason why Paynter has decided to end its association in this industry. Mr Hughes said that the company would be concentrating on its timber activities, both in New Zealand and in Australia, which included manufacturing and marketing. Further details on what Paynter planned to do would be contained in the annual report, which was due to be released next month, he said. Continued decline in the building sector is shown in building permit

statistics for September, with the number for new dwellings down 9.4 per cent on the corresponding month in 1987, reports the Press Association.

Non-residential building permits were down 19.5 per cent. The Statistics Department said 1760 permits for dwellings were issued with a total value of 5142.7 M in the latest September. In September last year, there were 1943 permits with a value of $152.9M. The number of nonresidential permits was down from 558 to 449, and the value was down from $122.6M to $102.8M.

The department said significant declines in value were recorded for warehouses, down to $3.2M in the latest September, shops and restaurants (S3.IM) and offices (549.5 M