AIRVENT GROUP
AIRVENT GROUP
Airvent Group Grows From
Strength to Strength PRODUCTION: Manelesi Dumasi
Cape Town’s Airvent Group, one of the country’s leading HVAC businesses, is continuing to realise progress as it aims to build its footprint around South Africa. Having recently opened a new branch in George to attack the southern market, the group is now well positioned to offer a one-stop shop solution for domestic and commercial clients of any size.
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In September 2016, Enterprise Africa learned more about Cape Town-based Airvent Cape, one of the country’s leading HVAC organisations. Back then, Airvent was realising tremendous success, despite being forced to operate in a flat market brought about by recessionary pressure and economic instability. 12-months on, the economic environment remains uncertain but Airvent continues to grow at an unprecedented rate, achieving success that others could only dream of. Having recently completed a number of high-profile projects, with more to come online soon, and with a strong pipeline for the future, the Airvent management is thinking about its next move in expanding the business across the entire nation. “Ideally, we want to be recognised as one of the top players in South Africa,” says Airvent Group CEO, Mark Rogers. “Right now, our turnover sits at around R220 million and in the next three years we want to get to R500 million. It’s a steep target but with everyone aligned, it’s completely possible.” Founded in 2001, Airvent has grown from a small team selling and installing
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air conditioning units for homes in Cape Town to a diversified group of companies offering a turnkey solution for both the domestic and commercial markets in all nine provinces. In order to tighten its grip on the national market and spread its footprint as widely as possible, Airvent recently opened a new branch in George. This new business will fit into the Airvent Group and will supply the widest range of air-conditioning products while delivering first-class service to the region. “At the beginning of September, we opened a branch in George called Airvent Southern Cape,” details Rogers. “The business is aimed at Port Elizabeth, Oudtshoorn, Mossel Bay, Knysna, Plettenberg Bay, George and a radius of around 200km from George. It’s an individual business that’s part of the group and we’ve elevated one of our staff members to become a shareholder and Director in that business. It has potential to grow nicely as we need to be growing nationally, and we’re growing from Cape Town to George and then possibly up to Durban as we already have a presence in
Johannesburg. We want to expand up the coast first and then move inland. “We’ve met up with a lot of engineers in that area and its hugely helpful that they know our name in the industry and I look forward to our progress in that area.” BIG PROJECTS Last year, Airvent was busy with a number of big projects including installation of airconditioning units as part of the SKA build, a large shopping centre contract in George, a number of installations on Northern Cape solar farms, a large shopping centre in Nelspruit, and a number of prominent residential developments in Cape Town to name just a few. 2017 has seen the company continue in this vein with successful completion of last year’s projects creating an appetite for further success within the company. “We’re involved in a number of projects right now,” says Rogers. “We’re busy with quite a few upmarket apartment buildings in Cape Town; we’re busy with Bantry Hills Apartments which is along the Atlantic seaboard, we’re also busy with the AURUM apartments, which is also in that region.
INDUSTRY FOCUS: HVAC
Bantry Hills Apartments is a R12 million contract and AURUM Apartments is a R8 million project. They’re very prestigious apartment blocks and were very proud to be involved with them. Haw and Inglis are building Bantry Hills, and AURUM is a JV between Murray & Roberts and METLE Construction.” The company completed its fitting at the George Eden Meander Lifestyle Centre earlier this year, but continues work in Nelspruit through Airvent Johannesburg. Another exciting project with the City of Cape Town is ongoing which is particularly interesting for Airvent. “We’re complete in George. We’re still busy working in Nelspruit; we’re hitting the final stages and our completion date is set for the end of October. It’s been a very successful project to date and all of the professionals on site are very happy with the work we’ve done,” says Rogers. “In Cape Town, we’re busy with a large contract for the government which is
the Water and Sanitation building in Bellville. That is a R30 million project and we’re proud to be associated with the project and the builders, Group 5. It’s a green building so it’s very energy efficient and we’re involved in making sure our products meet the standard of the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA). It’s stringent and fastpaced; we have around 60 technicians on site and we’re making good progress.” Airvent’s involvement with these big projects has allowed it to achieve a long-held vision bolster its credibility with the country’s big-name construction firms. “That is our aim and it’s going quite well – we have a nice even spread among them,” admits Rogers. The Airvent group of companies places honesty, hard work and trust at the heart of everything it does. By sticking to these values, it guarantees customers remarkable products and services. This is why its project pipeline was ‘the biggest it had ever been’
last year, and continues to grow this year. “It is very healthy,” says Rogers. “We’ve secured work on the contracts side of our business for the next six months and we’ve achieved status as the top Daikan dealer in South Africa. We’re also among the top dealers in the Western Cape for Samsung and LG and those partnerships absolutely help our growth – they’re great partners to have and they help us win more work.” Cape Town remains the core market for Airvent, but its presence is certainly growing. Last year, Airvent was reasonably new to the Johannesburg market but was quickly gaining understanding and foothold. In 2017, that progress has continued however a slight change in strategy has been implemented. “The market in Johannesburg remains very different to Cape Town,” says Rogers. “We’ve changed our structure a lot and we are now not focussing on the domestic market. We are only focussed on the
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C O N D I T I O N I N G
AIRVENT GROUP
commercial market, specifically tender based projects where we can be very competitive. We are busy with two projects alongside the one in Nelspruit and both are fairly large projects. We are working on a fit out at SAB which is a R3.5 million contract. We continue to quote and we see that the business has turned and is now a big contributor to the group.” Another growing part of the business that is starting to become very lucrative and important for Airvent is the Heatpumps and Solar division - one of the market leaders in the design and supply of heat pumps and solar water heating systems. “Our solar and heat pump business is growing very nicely and with the price of electricity going up, we tend to find people becoming more and more interested in getting energy efficiency for their buildings and that’s good for us,” explains Rogers. BOOMING Following on much the same as 2016, Airvent has seen business boom in 2017 and in a market where confidence in the economy is weak, investment is slow, and construction firms are struggling, Rogers suggests that the nature of Airvent’s turnkey offering is behind the company’s success. “Our business has evolved over the last couple of years. What we have is a diversified group of companies and what we’re finding is that our clients like the integrated offering that we can deliver. We offer more of an energy solution for their house or building rather than just airconditioning. We’re now offering products that offer the best air-conditioning, but they’re also linked to the heating of water for the property and generally, with this type of system, it becomes a long-term efficient system for a client. When we integrate our companies, we find that we do tend to close more deals based on the fact that we’re offering a one-stop solution,” he says. Also, the company’s core geographic market in Cape Town is potentially inline for a sustained period of investment and upgrade, meaning many opportunities for industry leading businesses who have a
proven track record of success. “Cape Town is different to the rest of the country and we are very lucky down here,” Rogers laughs. “The market is extremely buoyant on the commercial and domestic sides, and there are also a lot of people that are moving to the Western Cape and that fuels our domestic market. Most of our business is in Cape Town but we are doing well in Johannesburg so we have been lucky. The future in Cape Town also looks exciting as there are plans for massive expansion on the outskirts of the city where there is talk of R20 billion-worth of development and that shows us that there is a very nice pipeline to come.” With an eye on the future, and keeping in mind his target for doubling turnover, Rogers and the Airvent management have reorganised the group to ensure that all parties are moving in the same direction. This reshuffle has seen the group’s focus streamlined and all separate divisions united
in a vision for countrywide growth through the delivery of first class service. With infrastructure development remaining a key priority for SA’s government, the future is likely to hold many opportunities for Airvent and the growth of its offering looks set to continue in a strong way. “It’s grown dramatically over the years but that comes with its challenges. I’m extremely happy with where we are at the moment. We have reorganised the business so everyone, across all divisions, has one drive and one direction so that we can grow dramatically over the next few years,” Rogers concludes.
AIRVENT GROUP 021 001 3728 mark@airventhq.co.za www.airventgroup.co.za
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