Time to go for Fletcher Building's board
It's hard to draw any conclusion other than Fletcher Building's board has reached its use-by date following the third set of unexpected additional costs to complete the New Zealand International Convention Centre (NZICC).
Three successive increases in estimated costs since December 2022 shows a failure of governance, because this continual creep of additional costs just should not be happening.
It smacks of a board that doesn't have a grip on the company's business.
It reminds me forcefully of the situation in 2017 when it became clear that the then board and chief executive Ross Taylor's predecessor, Mark Adamson, were dragging their heels on facing facts.
Even after Adamson's departure in July 2017, there was a constant trickle of bad news and more and yet more costs incurred on the disastrous high-rise building projects undertaken by the Building + Interiors (B&I) unit within the constuction division.
That reluctance meant shareholders were subjected to a constant stream of bad news.