i believe that was the original plan for many years, but the brief romance with CAT killed that idea, and waas was born.
It is clear to me now that a deal with a builder would not have worked. Why? Ask yourself how many builders own concrete pump machines. I don't know of any. Why? Imagine - it would be a scheduling nightmare to ensure the machine is fully booked out every day of the year - they would have to stage the building work around the machine availability.
So a deal with a brick/block maker makes more sense - the builder tells the manufacturer when they want the bricks on site, as always, but now the walls get built too on delivery of the bricks. Brilliant. Can't think of a better way of doing things.
The big surprise for me is BKW. Yes they have a large % ownership, but I am not aware of any contracts. What would happen if the second biggest block manufacturer in Australia signs a deal like CRH's? BKW would be screwed. Can they block it? I doubt it unless they do a TO of FBR, which now seems unlikely.
Why didn't BKW do the deal? Perhaps too risk averse. Not until a manufacturer of hadrians has started making them. But we can't sign a deal to make them unless we have someone to buy them - so its chicken and egg again. All it needed is for BKW to place an order similar to CRH - but they are too chicken.
So, if Australia's biggest brick maker doesn't cut it then the only thing left to do is to go overseas.
Wienerberger is a possibility, but maybe they don't have a market in one region as big as CRH? I Don't know, but it is also a surprise that they didn't jump in, especially considering we did a test build with their blocks.
