BEST PRACTICE SPONSOR 2020
THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW
Highlighting best practice
16 | PANTERA GROUP LTD
We are now audited by the
International Fire Consultants and
have developed systems throughout
the business to ensure all installations
are fully compliant. It can be easy for
installers to slip into rules of thumb,
but this is not applicable to fire-
stopping and therefore competency
at all levels of the business is essential
for ensuring correct procurement and
installation of fire doors.
Funding growth
In 2015 we embarked on our most
challenging and ambitious project to
date, the prestigious One Tower Bridge
for Berkeley Homes. Stepping up to a
contract of this size required careful
consideration and management of
our finances throughout the scheme.
This opportunity was made viable by
Berkeley Homes signing up to the
28-day payment charter, ensuring
we received payment of our interim
valuations within 28 days. The better
than 30-day payment timetable
ensured we were able to successfully
cashflow the project.
Contracts that are subject to
prolonged or late payment can cause
cash issues within the wider business.
We pride ourselves on prompt payment
of our supply chain; therefore, the cost
of cashflow in the business, where
our payment terms exceed the supply
chain’s terms, reduces the operating
capacity and profit of the company.
Throughout our growth, all overdrafts
have been personally guaranteed by
directors, offering their own homes as
collateral. The UK banking sector seems
to have lost interest in the specialist
contracting sector and we have found
it hard to obtain meaningful lines of
credit, even with our longest-standing
banking relationships.
This overly cautious approach is not
replicated in the supply chain, where
we have regularly been extended
credit of up to £750,000 with 60-day
payment terms and no requirement for
personal guarantees.
A continuing challenge threatening the
business and restraining reinvestment
in the company is manifested in
developers and main contractors
continuing to hold cash retentions.
Of our current live contracts, all have
a cash retention being held by the
employer. At year end 2018, close
to £1 million of the business’s cash
was held as cash retention, with over
three-quarters of this sum held by
self-developers, thus they are not
subject to a retention themselves.
For SMEs, the payment of a five per
cent retention can be the difference
between a project recording a
profit or a loss. The financing costs
Perforated steel panelling at 250
City Road for Berkeley Homes
Backlit feature map wall joinery
in the spa at 250 City Road
In the wake of
the Grenfell
disaster, we
responded
immediately
“
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17PANTERA GROUP LTD |
associated with protracted payment
terms and cash retentions ultimately
increases the cost of construction and
contributes to the volatility of specialist
contractorsurvival.
Operating our business without cash
that is held up in financing extended
payment terms and as a cash retention
is a challenge. Our growth, however, is
further inhibited by the limited number
of projects for which we are able to
provide performance bonds at any
one point. We feel our growth could
be slightly less restricted if bonding
and parent company guarantee
requirements were either relaxed or
used instead of cash retentions, not in
addition to them.
Responding to a changing
workforce
We are yet to see a slowdown in
project numbers as a result of Britain’s
planned exit from the EU. We have
seen, however, that the number of
workers returning from Eastern Europe
after planned holidays has reduced.
While this has not always directly
impacted upon the joinery workforce,
it has affected other trades on which
our work depends.
We try to stay on top of labour force
management, endeavouring to keep a
core of tradesmen who buy in to the
company ethos. By ensuring all workers
are paid in full and on time every
fortnight, we have built a reliable core
of capable tradesman. The essential
values of the company are passed down
to the workforce, and the company’s
professional identity and standards
are evidenced in everyday practice,
from wearing branded workwear and
premium safety equipment to investing
in premium tooling.
That said, we are witnessing a
deskilling of the workforce through
the introduction of price-work fitters.
While the industry trend, for time,
quality and safety reasons, is to move
production of items off-site, this is
leading to a gradual loss of specific
skills from the carpentry industry,
the replacement being price-work
fitters. Tradesmen are self-branding
themselves as first fixers or second
fixers, and are often not only unwilling,
but also unable, to competently
undertake works that fall outside their
skillset but which would once have
fallen within the traditional skillset of
the carpenter and joiner.
We have operated an apprentice scheme
for over 18 years, with the focus of
this being to ensure that graduates
finish as rounded, multidisciplinary
tradespeople. With low industry uptake
and reduced training opportunities due
to prefabricated elements delivered
to site and continual apprenticeship
scheme funding changes, providing
suitable on-the-job training has been a
genuinechallenge.
As we look to the future, we aim to
expand our services offered within the
sector by bringing to market several
new joinery products and utilising our
ISO quality management systems, FSC
for sustainable timber and Achilles-
accredited processes to manufacture
these products and deliver them to
sites and purchasers using our FORS
Silver-accredited fleet.
We aim to
expand our
services
offered within
the sector by
bringing to
market several
new joinery
products
“
“
First fix and joinery
installed at The Dumont
for St James
Rt Hon The Lord David Blunkett
Rt Hon The Lord Eric Pickles
