One week, 22 construction firm liquidations
Wednesday, 28 January 2026
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It’s a new year but times remain tough for the construction industry, with a high number of building or property related companies still going into liquidation.
Over the seven days from January 20 to January 27 there were 22 applications to put building or property related companies into liquidation, according to the NZ Government Gazette.
Many were home building and renovation companies, including Gold Hawk Developments, Paradise Developers, Summit Build Group and Knox Builders.
There were also businesses across trades such as roofing (Roofx), painting (Fresh NZ Painters), kitchen and cabinetry (Pinnacle Kitchens) and bricklaying (J. Dykhoff and Sons Brick and Block Layers).
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Civil construction and earthworks companies, such as AXC Civil and Mender Construction, and property investment companies, such as Mountain Oyster Properties, also featured.
The list of new liquidation applications came on top of the latest data from credit reporting agency Centrix, which put company liquidations overall at their highest monthly level since 2011. Construction was the most affected industry.
There were 753 construction firms liquidated over the year to October - an increase of 21% on the previous year - although liquidations represented only 0.9% of all registered companies in the sector, Centrix said.
The construction industry’s downturn has been deep and prolonged, but heading into the new year there was “cautious optimism” about the outlook.
So The Post asked some industry insiders what the recent high numbers of business liquidations said about the prospects for recovery this year.
Canterbury-based construction expert Mike Blackburn has been running workshops for sales representatives from around the South Island. Participant feedback indicated the industry was looking good and lots of work was being booked.
But the market was up and down depending on where you were in the country, he said.
Queenstown was a microcosm in its own bubble, while Christchurch was strong, Hamilton was in the toilet, Auckland was improving and Wellington was in modest recovery, for example.
Blackburn was not seeing the stress in the market around the greater Canterbury area that he saw in 2024.
“Last year was an improvement on that, but most subbies I’ve talked to say it is still a competitive market out there, and the building firms have to chase work.
“But for many building companies the pinch has been a long time in the making. They may have been doing work for low margins just to get their staff wages paid, then IRD may have come calling, and it’s hard to come back from there.”
The liquidations being seen now were the effects of a prior bad economy and the companies in question had not managed to take advantage of increasing construction activity to bail them out of trouble, he said.
“There will be others where the balloon has popped, and they have no place to run or hide, so we’re likely to see a trickle of liquidations in this sector keep coming through.”
Despite that, Blackburn was positive about the industry’s outlook. He said he talked to a couple of hundred builders every month and most were optimistic this year would be better than last.
Certified Builders chief executive Malcolm Fleming said at the top end of 2025 he noticed there were a few more liquidations coming through.
Typically, his organisation - which has about 2300 members - saw about six liquidations across a calendar year. Last year, there was 21.
“So far we have seen one liquidation among our members this year. Obviously, we’d like to see none, but I feel confident that we will not see as many this year as we did last year.”
Certified Builders’ data showed there had been a spike in the number of contracts and employment agreements being downloaded by their members in January, he said.
“That shows our members are getting more building work, and are getting more confident about employing people because they have more work in front of them.”
It also supported the increase in construction job ads that was reported in Seek’s latest employment report last week, he added.
Ads for construction workers nationally and across all regions were up by 3.4% on a monthly basis, and by 42.9% annually in December, according to the report.
Building consents have continued to trend up, with 35,969 new homes consented over the year ending November 2025 - a 7% increase on the previous year.
Westpac senior economist Satish Ranchhod said he was still hearing reports of tough trading conditions from builders and developers.
But there was also some increased optimism about the year ahead as a result of lower interest rates, he said.
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