REH moat, page-167

"Tradelink's operations, according to your fantastic insight will cost 100 million and take an eternity to rectify."

Not my insights at all; rather, those of the management consultants who wrote the report which was submitted to Fletcher Building management in 2012.

Are you saying they are wrong? If so, how are they wrong?

Actually, I have to confess: when I said I suspected it would cost "the better part of $100m", I was inflating the 2012 figure of $80m by CPI to obtain the figure in current money of the day terms.

The bulk of the projected cost back then was for:

1. the construction of three new purpose-built DCs in NSW, Vic and QLD;
2. the refurbishment of 155 of Tradelink's stores, 50 of them requiring complete reconfiguration from scratch;
3. provision for onerous leases;
4. provision for inventory write-offs;
5. restructuring and redundancy expenses;
6. a new SAP management information system; and
7. foregone sales arising from stores being taken off line for refurbishment

Now that I reflect on it again, I'm not sure $80m would even have been enough given the sheer scale of Tredelink's problems and the lengths required to remedy them.

Little wonder Fletcher management opted for further muddling along instead, presumably in the hope that some miracle would occur.



PS. Can you explain how the a turnaround that was expected to take "up to 3 years" ends up being quoted by you as "an eternity"?