By Gareth Vaughan
The Co-operative Bank is shifting from almost one-third of its branches after post Christchurch earthquake building strength assessments of its premises.
Chairman Steven Fyfe told customer-owners at last Thursday evening's annual meeting the bank had updated the earthquake strength rating of all the premises in which it operates post the February 2011 earthquake. The bank's a tenant in its branches rather than owner of them.
"As a result of updating the engineering and seismic rating of all our branches, the end result of that is that we have, or will need to, relocate from 11 of our 31 branch sites throughout the country," Fyfe said.
"In some cases our leases were coming up for renewal and we have have been moving on to a better site or a newer site. But almost one third of our branches sites, we will be relocating from."
"The implications of this earthquake have gone far beyond Christchurch," Fyfe added.
Asked for further comment, Co-operative Bank CEO Bruce McLachlan told interest.co.nz the key issue was the bank's board and management had assessed that it requires all its premises to be "33%+" of new buildings standards before they could be confident they are providing a safe place for staff and customers.
"All businesses have their own minimum standards. With ours at 33%, it has required relocation of the 11 branches," McLachlan said.
"We relocate as soon as we can find suitable alternative premises. In some instances, we have moved to temporary premises while a suitable alternative has been found."
Building owners not hurrying to make upgrades
The problem, he said was many local councils have given 10 years or more for building owners to modify their buildings up to the 33% level, meaning few building owners are yet upgrading.
"This leaves few buildings, particularly in provincial New Zealand, up to the standard," McLachlan said. "A very large percentage of provincial New Zealand buildings are below the 33% level."
"The bigger problem for lessees is that there is no basis to stop paying the lease, even if the building is only say 5% of the new building standard. Therefore if a lessee moves out to provide a safe premise for their staff and customers, they immediately have to capitalise the remainder of the lease, and write this amount off in the current years P+L (profit and loss) account. This write off is the major cost in the relocation process."
McLachlan said Co-operative Bank, formerly PSIS, has found it's able to sub-lease "these earthquake prone properties", to businesses who seemingly don't share Co-operative Bank's concerns.
McLachlan said he would be surprised if other bank's experience was very different from that of many national businesses.
"I would probably prefer not to detail the exact costs. New fitouts tend to be between $250,000 and $500,000. But it is the write off of existing leases that hurts the most," McLachlan added.
See more on the costs of earthquake strengthening here.
Slower start to 2014 financial year
Meanwhile, Fyfe also told the annual meeting the Co-operative Bank, which recently announced plans to pay out $1 million to customer-members through rebates, or 12.5% of pre-tax profit, had seen a slow start to its 2014 financial year.
"2014 has started a little bit slower for the bank. Our lending growth rates in the first three months of the year are slower than the pace at which we grew last year. That may be a reflection of the marketplace, it's too early to judge that."
In the year to March 31, Co-operative Bank's mortgage lending grew 6.3% and its non-mortgage lending rose 6.9%.
McLachlan also told the annual meeting that Co-operative Bank's cost-to-income rate, at 83% was "incredibly high relative to the market." Most of the country's big banks have a cost-to-income ration in the 40% range.
"We have so much we want to do. We want to invest in our brand, we want to deliver new online services, we want to introduce new products. How do we do that? Well, we have to make the bank more efficient than it has been," McLachlan said.
A core element for us is not about cost cutting, it's about freeing up cash within the business to invest in those products and services and invest in things like paying rebates back to all of you."
He said the bank planned to open two new Auckland branches in October, in Botany and Newmarket. Next year it plans at least another three Auckland branches, with all new branches being open seven days.
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5 Comments
The issue of what % of a 'standard' is moot, as Hugh P has recently written about in Stuff.
Thing is that Standards are static, dependent on plans, elevations and specifications assessment, and with 'inspections' that really only confirm that the building was slung together in a manner visually resembling them bitsa paper.
So 'building assessment' is like trying to 'assess' the cornering performamnce of a car from a Plan of its Shockies.
Whereas, of course, a much more reasonable test of a car is to drive the thing around a few chosen corners, at speed, and see what happens.
Dynamic, not static.
Unfortunately, cannae be applied easily to buildings, unless Gaia thoughtfully provides a prolonged earthquake sequence, the building is well instrumented with strain and motion sensors up the wazoo, the whole data stream is recorded over an extended period, and the results are collated and data-mined/analysed.
So really, the 'assessments' aren't worth the paper they are presented on.
Just like the plan of those Shockies....
"So really, the 'assessments' aren't worth the paper they are presented on."
Disagree Totally! Buildings do have a strength or earthquake resistance that can be calculated and communicated as a % of the current design standard.
Yes earthquakes are dynamic, but you forget that NZ is one of the leading countries when it comes to seismic deign, and so the thinking and practise is well developed.
Employers have an obligation to manage H&S so they need to know how strong buildings are and then can make judgements about whether or not to continue to tenant them. Putting one's head in the sand - saying engineer's don't know what they are doing - is BS. They have to make judgements based on their experience and skill but lives depend on it!
Oh, too many assumptions....
- Building was built as per plans (Chch has several examples of heritage buildings which turned out to be nothing like their plans in terms of internal steel structure etc)
- State of structural elements - corrosion, grade of steel (remember that 'certificates' can be purchased quite readily for offshore componentry), tightness of bolts, rivets, quality of welds, yada yada. Assumes they can all be seen, tested (non destructively of course) and understood
- Visibility of key dynamic response elements (deep foundations, subsoils as two obvious examples)
Comments May perhaps apply to current (last 3-5 years)commercial builds in the larger cities.
But anything from heritage (60-100 years back), anything in the wops, and anything pre 1970 ish is shurely not 'seismic design' top of the heap.
And That's around 70% of all buildings.....ya perhaps now sees the issue?
Read Hugh P on the documented absurdity of his 'assessments', do.
I'm not saying its an easy job to do - but it needs to be done!
Can't all throw our hands in the air and say "it is too hard - too many assumptions - our staff matter to us but we'll just suck it and see." Just becasue it is a hard problem doesn't mean you leave it alone and hope it goes away.
Some of the results will be right and some will be wrong and most will be in the between the two. It a skillful assessment based on facts, experience, and observation.
I have read enough of Hugh P to know I don't want to read any more of his posts, thanks.
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