Mike Wylie: WBHO chairman accepts Tollo Nkosi’s challenge – and fires off a couple of his own
LONDON — It's been my privilege to have known the construction industry's senior statesman, WBHO chairman Mike Wylie, for many years. During this time I've seen him quietly contributing to those less privileged, including a watershed donation that helped St Joseph's HIV clinic near Bronkhorstspruit save many lives. In this interview Wylie explains why he answered UMSO Construction CEO Tollo Nkosi's challenge to get involved in the Nelson Mandela CEO SleepOut™, who he is bringing along on 11 July and why he has challenged the CEOs of Raubex and Stefanutti Stocks to join in at Liliesleaf. – Alec Hogg
When you hear the song coming up here, what we call a jingle in the trade. This is to let you know that we are bringing you the latest update in the CEO SleepOut™, and today our guest is the Chairman of Wilson Bayly Construction. His name is Mike Wylie. Well, Mike, we're going to be seeing you on the 11th of July, at Liliesleaf in the middle of the Gauteng winter. I guess you might have had different plan?
Alec, I'm not sure that I'm looking forward to it but I know it's for a wonderful cause so I'll be there.
I've known you for a long time, Mike. You're one of those unsung heroes. I remember when I was involved with St. Joseph's, as part of the CSI project at Wilson Bayly, because you were doing work in the area, you donated an x-ray machine, which helped St. Josephs, which is an HIV outreach to identify people sooner if they had tuberculosis and problems in that sense, and I think you saved, as a result of that, many-many lives because people could be better treated. You keep under the radar with these things though.
Alec, I think being in construction, we're out there in the rural areas, obviously in the urban areas as well. But a lot of time in the rural areas and we really like to pick up projects in a rural area. We talk to the local community and try and when we leave that site and finish our job, you know they all come to an end. Hand it over and when we leave, we like to have left something for that local community so it's really rewarding and it does involve things like clinics, and schools, irrigation for farmers – whatever we can help with. Yes, so our CSI programs are sort of now automatic in WBHO, even though we don't make all that much money in construction it's so nice to at least give a lot of it back.
There was a time when people were pointing fingers at you. I don't think that's happened anymore. I see the Aveng share price from R8 to 13 cents, and Group 5 very well documented the problem they've got. Has there been an appreciation from those in control, those who were attacking the construction industry that maybe you guys aren't such back actors after all?
There are just so many factors that point to the fact that we weren't ripping anybody off. Cover-pricing is one thing but inflating a price is another thing. The fact that you can see the historical margins that we always worked at, and just the fact that WHBO has taken huge market share, if you say from 2000, to where we are now. You could never collude in an environment where the market share is changing because by definition to collude, you've all got to sit around a table and share the work out and you can see that hasn't happened. I must say that there was never a smoky room meeting, and this is the sort of perception that unfortunately, certain elements have liked to pursue.
Yes, perceptions unfortunately, are for certain people reality but moving onto the CEO SleepOut™, which is an exciting event. You guys have been involved in it before.
Yes, there was a SleepOut™ around Sandton where our CEO, Louwtjie Nel was there and he raised a lot of money. I must say, the company was very proud of him. When I got the challenge from Tollo from UMSO, through yourself obviously, I really couldn't say no. Even though I'm not a CEO but I think you'll still have me there, I'm a chairman. I'm a bit old for CEO now but I'm going to be there with a few of our guys and we're looking forward to it. It's such a good cause and, I must say, it gets huge media coverage. Hopefully, it makes us all very aware of what's going on in the country.
Well, this year DSTV, who are probably the biggest media company in the country, well they are of course Naspers. But they're sending a crew to do a half-hour show about everything that happens there so there's certainly going to plenty of media coverage on it.
Good.
Tollo Nkosi actually said, when he challenged you, he said that he didn't think that anyone in the construction industry would be able to come this year because times have been so tough. So it's great to see that at least Wilson Bayly is going to be there.
Yes, it is tough but it's just these things one should do, especially something like this that is going to get a lot of coverage. So, hopefully most of the other companies will come. We certainly won't be bidding on Nelson Mandela's room, we don't have that sort of money but we'll be there, and we'll be there in spirit as well.
Just give us some idea of the people that you'll be taking with you and the reasons why?
I'm taking 2 of our divisional directors, who are really up and coming leaders for the future. We've got wonderful people and I've randomly asked these two and they were enthusiastic to come so I said, 'let's go.' The one is Sibusiso Mwandla who is one of our real stars, building our new Milpark Hospital extension (a big job), and the other is Russell Adams, who has just come off building a 100-megawatt gas pipe power station at Komatipoort so to have those sorts of guys with me, who are the future, is special.
How much autonomy do they have when they do projects of that nature, they both sound like pretty big jobs?
Look, they've had a lot of experience to get to the position where they are now running these jobs and they've obviously got a lot of support from all sides, especially with safety and with quality, and with the accounting and commercial side. I think that's how WBHO has always operated. There's always been huge support. For everything you need when you're running, as Sibusiso is running a R400m contract so, if something goes wrong with the plant you need to phone up someone and have immediate attention. I think we create an environment around our sites and I've always had this policy that when you've got a construction site you must put a fence around it so that the guy running the site can totally concentrate doing the building of it. He mustn't have to worry about a whole lot of other peripheral things.
All that service must be there for him so he's the man and we have huge respect for the guys out there with that responsibility. Taking on these really, big difficult jobs for clients that are so important for us. Knowing that they'll deliver on time, with the right quality, within budget, so it's a big ask and we really look after these guys and that gives them the ability to succeed. A lot of them don't ever realise that they could do these things but it's a real team effort this construction business.
Something else that people don't know about you, Mike, is that you love surfing. Do you still surf?
Oh yes.
In your late 60s and you're still a surfer?
I'm almost 70 and still surfing.
And St. Francis is your…
It's the love of my life, yes.
And also, at St. Francis, is the St. Francis Links, which is a project that's been very successful. And going back some years, and this is the point I wanted to make because my challenge is going to all the members of the CEO Ibandla. It was a group that we put together, which I think did an enormous amount of good. When I left Moneyweb nearly 6 years ago, unfortunately, it didn't continue. But we ran it for about a decade. Half of that time there were events in Zimbali and the other half there were the events at the Links in St. Francis where you were our host. I'm quite keen to get all of those members, who've had some interesting experiences over the years. Be it Pravin Gordhan before he was famous, or Zuma before he was infamous, or Markus Jooste before we knew what his true colours were like, etc., but to actually get them all to come and sleep out with us. That would be quite an interesting challenge.
That would be really fantastic, and I hope you're going to get to them Alec, and I hope they're listening, because it would be great to see them all again. I think everybody enjoyed going down there and we really do miss it. I suppose maybe we must hope that one day you're going to do something similar again, once your feet are a little firmer here in SA and less time in the UK, or maybe you must get us all over to the UK, but it was really good fun and I didn't miss any of those. Yes, it would be great for all those guys and I'm sure they've all done very well in their careers and companies. So for them to be there on the 11th, would be great.
Indeed, so those are my challenges, all the members of the Ibandla and I'm going to write to all of them today to let them know. Who are your challengers? Who would you like to see shivering with us on the 11th of July?
Obviously, I go to the CEOs of large construction companies and it's a bit difficult really to expect too much from them at these difficult times, but there's one company that is really very good and succeeds every year, and that is Raubex – a specialised road building company that I think the country must really appreciate because our road infrastructure is vital for the economy. I'd like to suggest Rudolf Fourie of Raubex and then I know that Nkosi at UMSO Construction has a very good relationship – a mentoring relationship with Stefanutti Stocks and I'm surprised UMSO didn't actually suggest it – but I would like to challenge Willie Meyburgh to be there as well.
Right, so Willie Meyburgh and Rudolf. The two of them are in the sights. We're going to be getting them there but the really important thing is that it's also an opportunity for them to bond with members of their top team or maybe, as you've done, found some of the up-and-coming stars who wouldn't have the chance really, to spend an evening with the leaders of the company and to be able to engage in a very unusual circumstance where I suppose, we're all going to be thinking about those less-privileged on the one hand and secondly, braving the elements to a degree.
Absolutely.
Mike, I look forward to seeing you on the 11th and I'm hoping that the challenges (both yours and mine) are going to be accepted, as they should well be. That's Mike Wylie. He's the Chairman of WBHO and as you heard, he's challenged the Chief Executives of Stefanutti Stocks and Raubex – both in his industry. He, himself, was challenged by Tollo Nkosi of UMSO Construction with Tollo suggesting that it might be tough for people in the construction industry because they've been through the mill but Mike certainly has risen to that challenge and will be bringing along a couple of his brightest stars. I'm going to be challenging all of the members of Ibandla and that runs into dozens. It will be interesting to see how many of those have got the temerity to say, "No" to Liliesleaf on the 55th anniversary of the infamous raid, which netted six of the Rivonia Trialists. It's a little bit of history that we'll be making on the 11th of July. That's it from me, Alec Hogg. Until the next time, cheerio.