Hi All, I had the opportunity just after New Year to catch up with Michael Wood for a quiet ale and we got talking about Wienerberger AG and WaaS (Wall as a Service).
As always he is very interesting to have a yarn with
What I learnt about Wienerberger AG and Waas was interesting and probably worth retelling as it would fill a few holes for those on this on this forum who see WaaS and Wienerberger AG as a something that has developed left of field as some quick solution to the CAT MOU loss, and something brand new and a bit disturbing as a business model.
In 2009, as the effects of the downturn started to bite money was getting hard to find.
Keeping Hadrian and Goldwing liquid was a huge issue.
The Kevin Rudd Government had just removed the R&D Grants system which had been something Goldwing had been using extensively to help fund the build of the 105 machine, and a grant that they had been applied for in the order of $1m had been cancelled. Things were tough, and at the time Peter Scott from Brickworks came up with the idea of seeing if it was possible to raise some money from some of the Brickworks (Horsley Park) contacts in Europe.
It was decided that Michael Wood and Chris Troman should get on a plane to Europe and open up some discussion with these contacts and see if any of them might be interested in getting involved and injecting some needed cash.
Michael Wood as we know, was the other inventor , but Chris Troman was an interesting choice from Austral. Chris was the up and coming star in Austral and touted as a possible candidate at some time in the future as being the person to take over from Lindsay Partridge of Brickworks. This never eventuated and Chris is now off running his own company, but at the time he was there gun.
Chris new his way around Brickworks, had been shifted around inside of Austral, and was all over the concept of automating the process of bricklaying with a robot and was seen as the ideal person to go on the trip to Europe and look at what might be possible in the way of a deal.
As the story goes Michael Wood and Chris Troman’s first appointment on the trip was with JCB in England. JCB are the makes of heavy machinery, and Brickworks used them as a supplier.
Michael and Chris fronted up to there offices in the Midlands of England to meet with there R&D team only to find the R&D team had all just been laid off due to the 2009 downturn, and as the pair walked in to the building the last of the R&D teams furniture was walking out of the building in the hands of removalists… It was tough times and R&D was the first casualty.
The rest of the trip apparently wasn’t quiet as disturbing as the JCB encounter, another 5 companies were visited across Europe and one of the people they were in touch with was a long term friend of Brickworks , Wienerberger AG.
Michael and Chris spent a day with Wienerberger AG, in Austria, toured their plant, looked at there then new R&D products, Porotherm being one of them, and met with there R&D team to discuss the Hadrian robot and how it might be used in their business. One of the discussions they had was about a Business model that one of the Brickworks companies used for roofing tiles.
The company in Perth was Bristile Roofing , which Austral/Brickworks had purchased some years before hand.
The Bristile business model is/was very interesting. Bristile never sold a builder just the tiles for the roof. They sold the complete roof. Tiles , Battens and labour. It was a complete roof solution. In fact you couldn’t buy just tiles you had to buy the entire roof installed and finished (Sound familiar?) yep the precursor to the concept of WaaS
Chris Troman even at that point thought the same model could be used for bricklaying if a robot was used.
Wienerberger showed interest in the robot, but at that stage a lot more time and money was required to get the 105 finished, Wienerberger AG was also suffering at the hands of the downturn and there R&D department was stretched for both money and resources, and at the end of the day it was agreed to keep in touch but sorry we cant help with cash at this time.
The 105 went in to mothballs not long after this trip, cash was tight and those interested had all battened downed the hatches and were weathering out the storm the best they could and concentrating on their own knitting rather than others.
So the take out message from all of this can be summarised thus.
1. Wienerberger AG has know about the Robot since 2009
2. Austral are good friends with Wienerberger AG
3. Horsley Park/Austral/Brickworks are original investor in Hadrian and own a lot of shares.
4. Peter Scott who is now employed by FBR was at the Midland headquarters of Bristile, new the business model used by Bristle and was on the board of Goldwing and Hadrian from the beginning.
5. Wienerberger AG new about the Bristile roofing model long before we found out about FBR and WaaS
6. The current CEO of Wienerberger AG started his tenure in 2009 and would have known then about Hadrian and the BrickBot (Hadrian 105) from his R&D team.
My personal take is that although we might all see WaaS as something left of field, it is in fact something that has been floating around for a good many years, and has been brought to the forecourt , by the share interests of Horsley park and the involvement of Peter Scott late last year.
(By the way Horsley park were one of those who’s shareholding increased substantially (Close to doubled) after the release of the performance shares in November)
WaaS is a great concept, but rightly so, Hokey has a point when he asks how much capital is going to be required to get enough of the robots in play to reach a critical mass that would allow for good revenues to occur…
It is going to be huge, however Wienerberger AG is big and has the cash, and bricks are after all there knitting, it is what they do, and what they are good at.
If you want to value add to your product and increase your revenue, and bricks is what you build, what better way to do it than charge a premium to your end customers and supply those bricks laid … Everyone is a winner, Wienerberger AG sells more bricks because they can be laid faster, the price of the brick can go up as they are now value adding their product, and the developer builder, no longer has to worry about the whole process of the bricklaying, it is done for them.
