-
Business valuations
We offer expert valuation advice in transactions, regulatory and administrative matters, and matters subject to dispute – valuing businesses, shares and intangible assets in a wide range of industries.
-
Capital markets
You need corporate finance specialists experienced in international capital markets on your side if you’re buying or selling financial securities.
-
Complex and international services
Our experience of multi-jurisdictional insolvencies coupled with our international reputation allows us to deliver the best possible outcome for all stakeholders.
-
Corporate insolvency
Our corporate investigation and recovery teams can help you manage insolvency situations and facilitate the best outcome.
-
Debt advisory
An optimal funding structure for your organisation presents unprecedented opportunities, but achieving this can be difficult without a trusted advisor.
-
Expert witness
Our expert witnesses analyse, interpret, summarise and present complex financial and business-related issues which are understandable and properly supported.
-
Financial models
A sound financial model will help you understand the impact of your decisions before you make them. Talk to us about our user-friendly models.
-
Forensic and investigation services
We provide investigative accounting and litigation support services for commercial, matrimonial, criminal, business valuation and insurance disputes.
-
Independent business review
Is your business viable? Will it remain viable in the future? A thorough independent business review can help your organisation answer these fundamental questions.
-
IT forensics
Effective ESI analysis is integral to the success of your business. Our IT forensics experts have the technical expertise to identify, preserve and interrogate electronic data.
-
Mergers and acquisitions
Grant Thornton provides strategic and execution support for mergers, acquisitions, sales and fundraising.
-
Raising finance
Raising finance - funders value partners who can deliver a robust financial model, a sound business strategy and rigorous planning. We can guide you through the challenges that these transactions can pose and help you build a foundation for long term success once the deal is done.
-
Relationship property services
Grant Thornton offers high quality independent advice on the many financial issues associated with relationship property from considering an individual financial issue to all aspects of a complex settlement.
-
Restructuring and turnaround
Grant Thornton’s restructuring and turnaround service capabilities include cash flow, liquidity management and forecasting; crisis and interim management; financial advisory services to companies and parties in transition and distress
-
Transaction advisory
Our depth of market knowledge will steer you through the transaction process. Grant Thornton’s dynamic teams offer range of financial, commercial and operational expertise.
-
Virtual asset advisory
Helping you navigate the world of virtual currencies and decentralised financial systems.
-
Corporate tax
Grant Thornton can identify tax issues, risks and opportunities in your organisation and implement strategies to improve your bottom line.
-
Employment tax
Grant Thornton’s advisers can help you with PAYE (payroll tax), Kiwisaver, fringe benefits tax (FBT), student loans, global mobility services, international tax
-
Global mobility services
Our team can help expatriates and their employers deal with tax and employment matters both in New Zealand and overseas. With the correct planning advice, employee allowances and benefits may be structured to avoid double taxation and achieve tax savings.
-
GST
GST has the potential to become a minefield and can be expensive when it goes wrong. Our technical knowledge can help you minimise the negative impact of GST
-
International tax
International tax rules are undergoing their biggest change in a generation. Tax authorities around the world are increasingly vigilant, especially when it comes to global operations.
-
Research and Development
R&D tax incentives are often underused and misunderstood – is your business maximising opportunities for making claims?
-
Tax compliance
Our advisers help clients manage the critical issue of compliance across accountancy regulations, corporation law and tax. We also offer business and wealth advisory services, which means we can provide a seamless and tax-effective offering to our clients.
-
Tax governance
Mitigate tax risks and implement best practice governance that will stand up to IRD scrutiny and audits.
-
Transfer pricing
Tax authorities are demanding transparency in international arrangements. We businesses comply with regulations and use transfer pricing as a strategic planning tool.
-
Audit methodology
Our five step audit methodology offers a high quality service wherever you are in the world and includes planning, risk assessment, testing internal controls, substantive testing, and concluding and reporting
-
Audit technology
We apply our audit methodology with an integrated set of software tools known as the Voyager suite. Our technology has been developed to produce quality audits that are effective and efficient.
-
Financial reporting advisory
Our financial reporting advisers have the expertise to help you deal with the constantly evolving regulatory environment.
-
Business architecture
Our business architects help businesses with disruptive conditions, business expansion and competitive challenges; the deployment of your strategy is critical to success.
-
Cloud services
Leverage the cloud to keep your data safe, operate more efficiently, reduce costs and create a better experience for your employees and clients.
-
Internal audit
Our internal audits deliver independent assurance over key controls within your riskiest processes, proving what works and what doesn’t and recommending improvements.
-
IT advisory
Our hands on product experience, extensive functional knowledge and industry insights help clients solve complex IT and technology issues
-
IT privacy and security
IT privacy and security should support your business strategy. Our pragmatic approach focuses on reducing cyber security risks specific to your organisation
-
Payroll assurance
Our specialist payroll assurance team can conduct a review of your payroll system configuration and processes, and then help you and your team to implement any necessary recalculations.
-
PCI DSS
Our information security specialists are approved Qualified Security Assessors (QSAs) that have been qualified by the PCI Security Standards Council to independently assess merchants and service providers.
-
Process improvement
As your organisation grows in size and complexity, processes that were once enabling often become cumbersome and inefficient. To maintain growth, your business must remain flexible, agile and profitable
-
Procurement/supply chain
Procurement and supply chain inputs will often dominate your balance sheet and constantly evolve for organisations to remain competitive and meet changing customer requirements
-
Project assurance
Major programmes and projects expose you to significant financial and reputational risk throughout their life cycle. Don’t let these risks become a reality.
-
Risk management
We understand that growing companies need to establish robust internal controls, and use information technology to effectively mitigate risk.
-
Robotic process automation (RPA)
RPA is emerging as the most sophisticated form of automation used to help businesses become more agile and remain competitive in the face of today’s ongoing digital disruption.
The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 and the tender process – risky business?
In the cut-throat construction sector, it is generally accepted that the tender process is the best way to achieve value.
Tender, tender, tender is a common catch-cry in boardrooms – driven by the perception that tendering is the only way to get a good deal.
However, the tender process is contrary to the principles of the new Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSW Act), coming into force in early April. Under the new legislation, which promotes collaboration and joint responsibility, there are potentially serious implications for directors, chief executives and senior management teams, who now have a personal duty to ensure safety on their projects pre-, during and post-construction.
The HSW Act aims to reduce the incidence of injuries and improve the safety of workers. It requires people conducting a business or undertaking to properly assess risks and hazards created by their activities and to remove or minimise them.
This is making directors sit up and take notice, with the threat of up to five years imprisonment and three million dollar fines, boards and management need to take as much interest in health and safety as they do in the bottom line. The safety of people who construct and maintain, as well as those who subsequently work in their buildings, is now a director’s responsibility more than ever and penalties are commensurate with the severity of the issue.
The safety of workers during construction depends on the quality of a project’s design. Indeed, many of the difficulties construction contractors face are the result of unreasonable pressure put on the price and build time by the client – common outcomes of the tender process. The HSW Act demands a collaborative approach – this means the biggest impact it will have in the construction industry will be on procurement methods.
Time for a rethink of the procurement process
The outdated tendering process and the new HSW Act are fundamentally opposed. Contractors submit their lowest price by cutting fat out of the project in the belief they will make their margin back through variations based on design flaws and scope changes.
The result is often an adversarial relationship developing between client (aiming for the best price) and contractor (most exposed to health and safety risk during construction), with the consultant squeezed somewhere in the middle.
Too many contracts are awarded on the basis of lowest-price tenders, only to see the final price increase significantly through contract variations and failure to meet quality standards or deadlines – which can increase health and safety risks.
The disaffiliated, cost-driven tender model precludes the opportunity for collaboration. Central to the new Act is a requirement for all who are responsible for safety to work together.
The ability to influence safety on a project is greatest in the early stages of a project. However, in a tender process the design documentation has already been completed before tenders open, so there is minimal opportunity for the contractor to influence Safety in Design (SiD) initiatives, despite it being the contractor who is required to put the theory into practice. SiD workshops are most often completed post design by the consultant and client, while excluding the key participant – the builder.
Consequently, the time constraints associated with the tender process mean a contractor might have only weeks to properly assess the risks associated with the construction methodology. In tight timeframes, main contractors can also be forced to select non-preferred sub-contractors who are less safety conscious. The inevitable result is variations emerging and, in serious cases, safety can be compromised. Also liquidated damages limits contractors’ ability to change or challenge design and details that may in themselves be unsafe to build.
To thoroughly assess the risks associated with a project, the details must be inspected by the contractor, who is the expert in their field. This can only happen effectively at the design stage.
An alternative approach – collaboration
Following health and safety law changes in the UK and Australia, on which our new HSW Act is broadly based, a collaborative approach to construction procurement has gained favour over tendering.
This is because when it comes to health and safety, planning is the critical investment. The ability of participants to influence risk is greatest in the early phases of a project. Collaboration can be even more effective when the contractor and facilities operator have input into design, choice of materials and buildability (of both construction and maintenance).
In New Zealand, a similar move away from tendering to a collaborative approach involving the contractor during the design phase, aligned with the spirit of the HSW Act, is the obvious solution. Good standards of health and safety on a construction project start with the decisions made by the client who procures the work. It is at this stage that the whole health and safety climate of a project is established.
New Zealand-based contractors which have already adopted this approach have delivered very successful results for their clients. There are many examples of developments where contractors were involved in the initial design that are regarded by all participants as model projects, particularly in health and safety. Reducing health and safety risks is achieved through involving several parties in the design process, with shared ownership, as opposed to one entity directing the process.
Importantly, if the contractor participates in the design phase, the design will reflect high standards of practical buildability, engineering and architecture – as well as compelling value for money. In fact, if managed properly, the savings can be considerable, particularly where transparent price contestability is still evidenced.
The intention of the new HSW Act is to ensure duties and risks are allocated to the party best placed to manage them. While collaboration and collective action underpins this approach, it requires strong leadership from the decision makers. If not taken seriously at the top of the tree, the implications for poor management can be crippling. Time to rethink obsolete processes in favour of collaboration – legislation now demands it.
Further enquiries, please contact:
Bevan Hames
Business Development Manager
Apollo Projects Limited
T +64 (0)3 358 9185
E bevan.hames@apolloprojects.co.nz
David Ruscoe
Partner, Specialist Advisory
Grant Thornton New Zealand Ltd
T +64 (0)4 495 3763
E david.ruscoe@nz.gt.com