The name CORDE comes from the idea of different strands of rope coming together - a reflection of how the company has united various services across the infrastructure sector.
While the CORDE brand is only three-years-old, its founding company - district council-owned Sicon Ltd - has been around for more than 30 years.
The 2022 rebranding brought Sicon, Blakely Construction and Blakely Three Waters together under the CORDE name.
“That has gone alongside the commercial success, which is probably unparalleled in New Zealand at the moment, we think, in terms of a horizontal infrastructure business doing the things we do,” Harrington told district councillors during a briefing on the work the company does.
In the 2024/25 financial year, CORDE recorded its highest revenue of $148 million and its biggest profit at $14.6m, returning a $3m dividend to the district council. The company has $19m in assets and no debt.
The company is reinvesting part of its remaining profit into expansion, including the recent purchase of Arnold Jensen Electrical.
The Christchurch-based company has operated since the 1960s and carries out a range of work, from small residential wiring jobs to the design, construction and maintenance of commercial buildings.
It also specialises in installing and maintaining patient-nurse call systems for hospitals and nursing homes.
“We are excited about this purchase, and we have been looking to broaden our service offerings for some time to provide more value to our clients and grow into adjacent areas,” CORDE chief executive Mathew Havill said.
“Our water services and construction teams regularly purchase electrical services.”
The district council spent $102.9m with CORDE in 2024/25.
Like the district, CORDE has grown significantly, expanding its workforce from 246 staff in 2019 to 412 today across 25 locations. About 43% of its staff live in Selwyn.
“It won’t always be that successful because we are in a commercial world, but what it means is we’ve had to lift the company in all sorts of ways in terms of governance structures,” Harrington said.
What does CORDE do?
At the briefing, CORDE staff outlined the company’s key departments – including water services, parks, construction and roading.
Its water services and parks teams operate in Selwyn and Timaru, and this year picked up the Mackenzie District contract.
Across CORDE staff and subcontractors, the company has treated just over 9 billion litres of drinking water, emptied 76,742 rubbish bins, and mown 149,467,000sq m of grass in the past year.
In Selwyn alone, CORDE operates 39 water treatment plants and seven wastewater treatment plants –which run 24/7 – and visits about 132 sites each week for compliance checks.
Perrin said the team has invested in new technology, including a robotic line marker, and is exploring the use of autonomous mowers.
“We are deep into a project where we are doing some field evaluation of a variety of different use cases for autonomous mowing.
“We certainly feel the technology is now getting to a point, with regards to safety and accuracy, that it is getting viable to deploy some of these into the district,” he said.
Beyond water and parks, the company also has a substantial construction arm.
CORDE, which operates across the South Island from Queenstown Lakes to Hurunui, handles everything from surveying and design to groundworks, road rebuilding, new pipelines and new subdivisions.
Construction general manager Andrew Loader said the company’s dual role in building and maintaining assets delivers better value for clients.
“Our teams understand the whole life cycle that is part of the value add, not just the build.
“It means we are thinking constructability during design, thinking about maintenance, and long-term cost when we build renewals,” he said.
CORDE was the main contractor on the Ellesmere to Pines wastewater pipeline, completing the project four months early and $9m under the original $35.6m budget.
The job included a live cut into a 635mm wastewater pipe.
“We brought infrastructure and equipment over from Australia and trained teams here to deliver that work, minimising substantial cost,” Loader said.
He also highlighted the 3.2km first stage of an 11km pathway linking central Christchurch to New Brighton as one of the company’s most significant civil infrastructure projects, and it has tendered for stage two.
Loader said CORDE is prequalified for certain NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi work and is a tier one contractor for Christchurch International Airport.
While the company does not hold the Selwyn’s roading contract, CORDE has been the roading contractor for Waimakariri for 30 years and Hurunui for 10 years.
Havill said the company was planning to refresh its strategy.
“It’s clear that future growth cannot be achieved by continuing to scale our operations in the same way,” he said.
“In 2026, we will undertake a strategy refresh and identify key initiatives to move the business forward, which will strengthen alignment between our people and the work they undertake.”
