Kyoda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. From the ongoing downfall of high flying developers to promises of Swedish meat balls, this year is set to be one to watch when it comes to property news. Major developments are getting underway after the passing of the Fast Track Approval Act, while some projects that have been under construction
for years are close to completion. But after a few years of a tough lending landscape and issues in the construction industry, I'll be closer to getting back on track. Today on the Front Page ends at Herald, property insider An Gibson joins us to share her property predictions for twenty twenty five. And let's start with perhaps a big property story of twenty twenty five that's going to be continuing. The Deval Group. You've spoken to us about them before.
When are they expected to be before the court.
So there's a number of dates that are set to have court appearances with Charlotte Clark, the chief executive of Duval. And this is action that the Financial Markets Authority and PwC is taking against them. So ready we've got a February date that's due for an update on the clerk's legal position getting legal aid. We've got the receiver's PwC to provide an update to the court in March, and it's not till June that we've got the more substantive
three day hearing due. So that's going to be I think one of the larger stories for this year because there is so much action on that front, and also the amount involved. So John Fisk, one of the receivers PwC said two hundred and thirty seven point six million OD and the report that PwC issued also expressed concern about irregular accounting entries.
I was going to say that about the money. I saw one story last week about one entity alone owing four point six million dollars in taxes to IRD. So is there just a massive paper trail that they're working through at the moment.
Oh.
I think that was really interesting. When John Fisk talked about the duval entities last year, I think he compared them to something like spaghetti from memory. He said there were so many interconnections, there were so many entities. I think there's more than sixty companies. It's a very complex where it's a very complicated receivership and statutory management. Nothing is really clear there yet. At the moment.
We were looking at the social media, this guy was saying things like, you know, hates the thing that sharpens my blade kind of thing, and posting pictures of himself next to his Rolls Royce with duval one number plate on it.
Business Desk property editor Maria Slade has been following Duval closely since her first article in twenty twenty one raised concerns this is.
Not normal behavior for a property developer who's just trying to get on with the business of building houses.
You know, are you surprised by how fascinated people are in this case?
No, not really, because of the fact that the clerks were very high profile in terms of the life style that they were living in the image that they projected of highly successful property people. It's interesting too that also we're still getting updates from Kenyon Clark talking about him not living in fear, finishing his book, wanting to get his passport back, wanting to hold the FMA and PwC
to account. So it's kind of this battle that's going on, and I think it's got all the elements of a store that people are interested in, and the unusual thing to me is that most property developers are not like that at all. This does fulfill a certain image that people may have, but it's not actually the reality. This is exceptional.
It sounds like something that could be turned into a Netflix mini series at some point, doesn't it.
Well, there was a documentary being made called The Property Developers and it was going to go into season two. We haven't seen season one. When I talked to the producers of that last year, they talked about an international platform purchasing the rights to that. Seems fairly unlikely at the stage, but you know, good surprise on the upside.
Let's move on to developments. The Fast Track Approval Act passed last year. How many projects are we expecting to see get kick started from that?
Well, there were exactly one hundred and forty nine approved in the legislation that was passed before Christmas. There were more than three hundred applications made. Now I'm gradually working my way through the list. It's quite a daunting but the first two which I found really interesting were a revelation that there was a project and to develop the heart of devport for more than four hundred million dollars
by Peninsula Capital, which is headed by Beerige Spencer. And the second one is a court of a kilometer high tower on the waterfront the downtown project Nati Fato or Rachai and also precinct properties together on that so they're talking about retail, apartments, offices, and a big civic component of that too. So that's just two of those. But honestly, when I look at the list, it is a fascinating list.
It's everything from wind farms to power stations, to golf courses to you name it all in there.
This is the very spot hundreds, maybe even thousands of shoppers will flock to every day. That's because it's the site of New Zealand's first ever I Care constructions finally begun, with the initial earthworks very much underway, but don't get too excited just yet, with doors only set to open in twenty twenty five.
Now, I'm going to move on to something that I know a lot of people have been asking me about. Probably a lot of people have been asking you about as well. We've been waiting for IKEA for decades and it's nearly here. What's the latest you've heard there.
Well, so Ikea have announced that they will open in the final quarter of the twenty twenty five calendar year, and it does look very likely in that late last year they issued an update showing that about a quarter of the exterior cladding is on this huge warehouse and just on the other side of the railway lines from Sylvia Park. So Nayla Love the biggest builder in New Zealand in terms of workloads. It was, of course working on the christ Church Cathedral. They are moving at pace
on that site. So let's hope that Ikea does open in the final quarter of the year. You're right, there's a huge amount of interest in it. It will be fascinating and it will bring a new concept to New Zealand, that concept of the themes and the rooms where you kind of go into another zone, don't you when you walk through an ik shop. Don't I had this experience? But you know, oh, could my bathroom look like that? Could my kitchen really hum in that way?
Wow?
Look at that bedroom design. I could change mine around and you know, so they're really good at that kind of experiential aspect and we get what the meatballs as well.
Which is very pod That was going to be my next question, and the Swedish meatballsolutely so there is an Ikea in Adelaide. Actually I can't remember when we got that when I was growing up, but the meatballs were obviously a massive draw card. And you're right that experiential
kind of shopping experience as well. There are literally arrows on the floor to guide you through each and so even if you're not looking at kitchen appliances, you will be seeing them as you make your way towards the meatballs.
I had a fascinating experience with the ike executives a couple of years ago when I was interviewing them and they wanted to ask me about I care experience, and you know, said, look, I have been to a number of overseas because it's very interesting from a property perspective. In fact, I have visited that one Adelaide. It's beautiful. And they wanted to know from me what did I buy, and I said, well, look, to be honest, to things, piller case, you know, internal linings that are really cheap
and really good, and pigs. Because I was traveling internationally so it was like these things could fit in the suitcase, no useful. Hey, you know what, we're still using those things.
Are there any other big brands making a move our way this year? I have been personally advocating for something like Audi to enter the market, but I know that my wishes are probably not going to be cast.
Wow, very good question. There is the second largest retail development in Auckland at the moment after I Care. Actually is the new Tesla showroom at Westgate mark Gunton's development. Now that is huge. The Mecky Center is eighteen thousand square meters. Are drove past it this week, unbelievable. You go for a long way down the street before you finish passing that building. So the building is up, it
will open this year. I know we already have Tesla outlets, but this is a whole new level just down the road from Tesla really quite absolutely opposite the Costco is a twenty four to seven kmart, the biggest in New Zealand. That's going to be opening. So you know, these sorts of things. It sort of shows also a level of confidence in Westgate, but also in that economy, people still spending buying the electric vehicle, you know, going into kmart kind of like one end of the retail experience to
the other. But I think Westgate is a really good example with all the new data centers going up there of growth and confidence in the economy.
On the other side of the equation, there's the developments that have flopped or gone stagnant. Let's start with c Skate without a part building on Auckland's Customs Street that's essentially abandoned. Is there any movement there?
Yes, it's really unfortunate. At the moment, we had an article about a young person scaling the crane of seascape at night and hanging by one hand from it. So August two, China Construction. Actually the builder there won their building disputes tribunal ruling when they demanded thirty three million from Shundi Customs. That's the developer. So we've had no work on that site for many months, or the trades businesses have pulled away from there, taken their tools with them.
We're just hoping at the stage that will resume, that the impasse between the builder and the developer will be resolved and that the people will return to the site and finish it. It's clad up to I think somewhere about level thirty five and you know it's fifty seven levels tall. It is a terrible thing for Auckland to have a building that big sitting idle for that long. It's also very bad for the structural components on the site to be exposed to the weather for that length
of time. Buildings are made to be closed, and they're made to be used. They're made to be worked and lived and they're not designed to be left open to the elements like this. And what is it about construction Because I'm looking at the liquidations.
Construction as an industry leads all industries.
Why yes, where the canary and the coal mine. Unfortunately, because essentially as soon as interstrates start going up to consume it, confidence comes down. Therefore people stop investing. People haven't spending the money. So private investors who are building the likes of shopping malls, retail restaurants and are like those projects immediately dry up.
And there's been a lot of woes in the construction sector in the last few years. A lot of builders and developers have gone under. You report it on another apartment developer declaring insolvency just last week. Where are things at now? Are we seeing some stability or even to pick up in new builds yet or do you anticipate that will happen this year?
I said in a column about the future twenty twenty five, zero powers to predict what I do see every day as a number of insolvencies on the company's office. Now, these are usually the shareholders themselves calling in the liquidators, Unable often to pay tax bills, unable to repay big loans.
You know, it's a really serious situation. Often what's occurred is the is the building has been finished and been sold, but the financial fallout may still mention COVID man that has a tale that is just unbelievable, the COVID lockdown and the pandemic. It's in virtually every receiver's liquidators report
that I'm reading at the moment. And the worst thing is too I think that in land revenue they talked about going full throttle, but also in land revenue are often a creditor, and the building suppliers are often creditors, as are many consultants and trades, and that is really concerning. That really does hit hard, and I don't see any let up at the stage. I wish I did what.
Do you think will be the big property trends this year?
In Well, I think the focus will really be on a number of things. One will be that seascape tar that is a very unusual situation, both parties out of China, very little control by New Zealand authorities to do much there. I do think dval will be interesting because of the number of court fixtures, dates, hearings, callovers whatever you refer to them as. I think that will be ongoing. There's actually a tremendous amount of development going on in Auckland
at moment despite the downturn in the economy. If you look at the skyline you see a lot of cranes, so what expect continuation of quite substantial amounts of work and when it when it all comes down, Really a lot of people are talking about the decline and interest rates and that giving the economy, you know, a bit of a follow up really, I'm yet to see that hugely in the market at the stage. I think for me it's very much a projects based year and I'll
be really interested to look out for new projects. Walworths has announced although I've applied for a huge expansion of a distribution facility at Woodie, which I'm yet to write about, but you know that shows, you know, an agglomeration of their distribution operations, so Supermarket's really doing well. You know, those will be the sort of themes that I think we'll see this year.
Thanks for joining us, Ann, You're welcome. That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzadherld dot co dot MZ. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Seals and Richard Martin, who is also our sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.