It wasn’t the strongest of interim results produced by a leading company in the current reporting season, but Lend Lease (LLC) shareholders will receive an unchanged dividend, despite the company suffering a 16% fall in profit for the six months to December 2013.
Lend Lease yesterday reported a first-half profit of $251.6 million, down from $301 million in the first half of 2012-13, thanks to weak results from Australia and Europe.
The property and construction group will pay an interim dividend of 22c for the 2014 first half, unchanged from a year earlier.
Profit from the company’s Australian operations fell 27% to $223.5 million, due to $25 million in restructuring and bid costs. That’s despite early profits from the huge Bangaroo project in Sydney.
Earnings from the company’s European operations plunged 86% to $8.2 million, after it sold its Spanish construction business along with lower returns in the UK and Italy.
The company’s Asian and Americas businesses had solid half years. It more than doubled profit in Asia to $69.1 million and saw an 85% jump to $48.1 million in the Americas.
LLC 1Y – Lend Lease interim profit down
Chief executive Steve McCann said the outlook was positive and the company’s strategy was on track.
“Our development business is in a strong position to leverage positive trends in the residential sector and our construction business has proved resilient, despite more challenging conditions around the globe,” he said.
“Forward sales in our residential development business and embedded returns in our pipeline of opportunities clearly underpin our earnings visibility over the next three years.”
The group finished the half year with a robust pipeline of global construction backlog revenue of $15.5 billion and a global development pipeline with an estimated end value of $38.4 billion,” Mr McCann said in yesterday’s statement.
Lend Lease shares fell by more than 6% at the opening, but the loss halved over the rest of the day and the ended down 3.7% at $11.14.
