Mainzeal

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The Mainzeal Group Ltd is one of the leading New Zealand property and construction companies.^[1] According to its website, Mainzeal creates about NZ$400 million of assets for its clients per annum and employs some 500 people in the whole of New Zealand. It is held by Richina Pacific, headquartered in Singapore^[2], but still listed on NZX.

[edit] History

It was founded in 1968 as a branch of Mainline Corporation Ltd, an Australian company to develop seven acres of harbour-front land in downtown Auckland, New Zealand as part of Mainline-Dillingham-Fletcher. Mainline Contractors Pty Ltd was established from this base and in 1969, became Mainline Corporation of New Zealand, a publicly listed New Zealand company, adopting the name Mainzeal Corporation Ltd in 1975.

The current holding company was created when Mainzeal acquired a New Zealand leather business (since sold) and in 1996 it changed its name to Richina Pacific (retaining the Mainzeal name for its construction unit) and started investing in China, where its owners saw major business opportunities (in construction-unrelated sectors). Critics have noted that this diversification of the holding company has been partly to blame for lackluster successes of the Mainzeal unit.^[3]

Mainzeal has built a number of significant projects during its history, including the award-winning Ngawha Prison in Northland.^[1]

Recently (2006) Mainzeal has experienced some major financial setbacks, posting large losses associated mainly with the 'Scene One', 'Scene Two' and 'Scene Three' apartment developments in the Auckland CBD and the close-by 12,200-seat Vector Arena in Quay Park, a project still unfinished at the end of 2006. ^[2] However, the losses on these projects seem to have been recovered, with Mainzeal's pre-tax earnings reaching US$ 1.6 million surplus compared to US$ 2.8 million loss in the previous year, with future workload at least U$ 227 million (as of the midst of 2006).^[4]