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Speaker 1: Now, it's a bit of a hammer blow for the

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Speaker 1: construction industry. The year is not off to a great start.

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Speaker 1: More than twenty building and property related businesses have gone

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Speaker 1: bust in just a seven day stretch. Malcolm Fleming is

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Speaker 1: the chief executive of Certified Builders and is with us

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Speaker 1: now evening Malcolm, good.

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Speaker 2: Evening, Heather, thanks for having me only Aela, thanks for

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Speaker 2: joining us.

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Speaker 1: Twenty two and seven days does seem like a lot,

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Speaker 1: is it? As much as it seems, it doesn't feel

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Speaker 1: like that.

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Speaker 2: If I think about these on Certified Billers, we have

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Speaker 2: twenty three hundred members. Typically in a year we see

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Speaker 2: about six liquidations across the year. Last year was twenty one,

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Speaker 2: and that really is an indication of how challenging the

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Speaker 2: last two years have been for the industry. So far

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Speaker 2: this year we've seen the one are there members going

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Speaker 2: to liquidation? In any liquidation is a bad news story.

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Speaker 2: It's devastated to the builder, the homeowner, the subtrades and supply,

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Speaker 2: and obviously you'd like to see very few of those

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Speaker 2: numbers apeny at all.

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Speaker 1: Do you think, I mean, obviously we've been through the

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Speaker 1: tough patch. Do you think if they're still sticking around

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Speaker 1: right now times are getting better or is it still

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Speaker 1: a bit of a grind.

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Speaker 2: That we're still seeing liquidations through into what really feels

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Speaker 2: like the start of an economic recovery. That were still

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Speaker 2: seeing them is not unusual. There'll be building firms have

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Speaker 2: taken on low margin projects or projects that they really

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Speaker 2: just shouldn't have taken on just to get through, to

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Speaker 2: keep their staff, to keep the wheels moving, and some

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Speaker 2: of them to stay in business over this very terrible

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Speaker 2: time this last two years, we've taken on get levels

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Speaker 2: to stay afloat in the belief that things would turn around.

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Speaker 2: And certainly this isn't an indictment that when on en

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Speaker 2: Diament an example, that they're still flowing on through they

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Speaker 2: haven't been on the hang on long enough for the

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Speaker 2: recovery that really is starting to feel as underway.

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Speaker 1: Now, when do you reckon we're going to start spending

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Speaker 1: on building.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm just trying to see that builders are starting

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Speaker 2: to get themselves thinking about growth. And there's a couple

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Speaker 2: of points of data can point to. Last week's seat

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Speaker 2: Darket data, for example, talked about a large spike in

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Speaker 2: construction jobs being advertised. But if I look close to

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Speaker 2: the home a Certified Builder's own data across the month

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Speaker 2: of January, we're up fifty percent on our members downloading

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Speaker 2: employment contracts, which is one of the membership ensits, and

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Speaker 2: that's indicating well good proxy that that's it's going to

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Speaker 2: feel comfortable about expanding their business because they have a

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Speaker 2: work pipeline of work starting to build up.

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Speaker 1: Malcolm, it's good to talk to you. Thank you for

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Speaker 1: running us through at Malcolm Fleming and some good news there,

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Speaker 1: Certified Builder's chief executive. For more from hither Duplassy Allen Drive.

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