Apollo Projects Limited
News
Good things coming out of Africa
31st May 2010
Apollo Projects' first foray into Africa has been studded with "challenges”, starting with a complex payment system using several currencies, and probably not ending with a military coup in February.
But Hamilton based Apollo director Craig Waghorn is enthusiastic about the possibilities having returned this month from a visit to the companies latest project, a meat processing plant in the West African nation of Niger.
Apollo Projects signed off last year on a $30 million deal with the nation's former government to build a New Zealand style meat works which will eventually process 400 cattle and 400 sheep a day
The coup added to existing complications of working in a developing nation, but undeterred, Mr Waghorn said Apollo's team of 12 in Niger were continuing, although they were ready to leave if the situation deteriorated.
"It is interesting times at the moment.... (the coup) hasn't sent the country spinning into violence but it might yet destabilise things from a finance point of view."
However, with work carried out on a cash-up-front basis, Mr Waghorn is confident they will not be losers in the deal, and is excited about building infrastructure which will help the country grow its economy.
It is also helping New Zealand’s economy. Mr Waghorn said about 50 other New Zealand companies are set to benefit from the contract, including a few Waikato firms supplying building materials for the meatworks project.
“We are trying to use New Zealand materials as much as possible.”
To date 110 companies had exported $15 million of New Zealand made materials and components to Africa, though the coup could still halt work, he was excited about the other doors the project had opened on the continent.
Mr Waghorn started Apollo with business partner Paul Lloyd in Christchurch eight years ago. They used their combined engineering, building and design skills to fill a niche in industrial buildings which needed specialist temperature controlled systems, starting with Marlborough’s wineries. Instead of just building spaces, Apollo takes projects from concept through to design, project management and construction.
Once they’re completed, clients only need to turn the key to become operational. “It is more than a construction company,” Mr Waghorn said.
Having grown up on the family farm at Little Akaloa on Banks Peninsula, Mr Waghorn says the move to Hamilton four years ago was a big call. However, Mr Waghorn said Apollo had been gaining work in the North Island, and buying a struggling Hamilton pre-fabricated steel buildings company, Spantech, was the ideal opportunity to establish a permanent North Island base.
As well as finding Waikato people easy to do business with, lower overheads, good transport links and the central location made Hamilton the ideal place to base North Island operations.
“A lot of businesses have head offices in Auckland but this is closer to our North Island client base,” Mr Waghorn said.
“We do a lot of food, beverage and dairy industry work and there is more scope (in Waikato).” That is reflected in some recent projects such as Fonterra’s state-of-the-art Te Rapa coolstore completed last year. It featured non-combustible Kingspan insulation which Apollo imports through a joint venture with Irish based manufacturer Kingspan Ltd.
Unlike inflammable polystyrene-based coolstore products the Kingspan products were fire-safe and also had insulated exterior cladding option making it an ideal product for Apollo’s winery clientele.
Mr Waghorn said Kingspan was used extensively on a recent winery project in Canada and also on Yealands’ new 11,000-tonne winery in Marlborough which had pushed the envelope in environmental responsibility.
“We only had three WastCare bins of rubbish over the entire build,” Mr Waghorn said.
The expansion to Hamilton had not been as risky a step as the meatworks contract in Niger, but for Mr Waghorn both moves were about positioning Apollo in marketplaces with unfulfilled demand.
He said there was always demand in niches – the trick was in finding them.
Waikato had been a good strategic step for Apollo but relocating to Hamilton was personally beneficial too, Mr Waghorn said.
Although he recently bought the family farm from his parents, his wife and sons are settled in the Waikato and Mr Waghorn has no plans to move back to Banks Peninsula any time soon. “I am really enjoying it up here,” Mr Waghorn said.
