Ben,
My two cents, a company the size of NBN does not want to be dealing with 100's of "Mum and Dad" Contractor companies or even SME's. If you do you have to manage each contractor, their certifications and compliance to safe work, and then also the resultant quality differences variances etc etc. To avoid having the costs of the "inhouse contract management" that's where you use a larger middleman like SSM. Just as in mining services companies.
That being said though, i've found in my career the in-source vs out-source model can vary back and forth. Different management can view the same situation completely differently.
Am very pleased to see the market re-rating these guys. They've steadied the ship with consistent runs on the board focusing on what they do well. I hope this continues and the NBN and others send more work their way.
SSM Price at posting:
49.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
A personalised tool to help users track selected stocks. Delivering real-time notifications on price updates, announcements, and performance stats on each to help make informed investment decisions.
(20min delay)