Tag: LEI

Believe it or not, but Leighton Holdings, the country’s major contractor, reckons its looking to Asia to find new sources of sustainable growth. That’s despite the region being its earliest offshore area for growth, especially in Hong Kong and Indonesia.

Leighton Holdings has confirmed what more and more investors have been suspecting, that it is a wealth destroyer, not a creator and that if they are really brutal, its time as a listed company in Australia is now looking limited.

Leighton Holdings seems to be stumbling from one problem to the next.

Excuse me for being slightly cynical, but didn’t you just love yesterday’s Leighton Holdings spin campaign?

Relief might have been the best way to describe the reaction yesterday to the annual figures from Leighton Holdings, Australia’s major mining and construction contractor.

For the second time this week Leighton Holdings has hit the headlines, this time with news of a restructure of its international operations.

Shares in Leighton Holdings defied the broader market sell-off yesterday and rose after the company said it would be back in the black soon.

Leighton Holdings may have answered a ticklish question from the ASX yesterday about why it didn’t update the market about its profit drop and writedowns faster than it did, but its problems in the troubled Middle Eastern state of Dubai seem to be deeper than thought last week.

Trading in Leighton shares remains suspended until Thursday to allow the company and its advisers time to raise the $757 million in new capital after the company confirmed huge losses and no final dividend for the year to June 30.

A big test today for Leighton Holdings, its board, former management, its big German shareholder Hochtief AG and that company’s biggest shareholder ACS of Spain.

Leighton Holdings, Australia’s biggest contractor, has cut its interim dividend after reporting a 25% slide in half year profits and revealing a 6% reduction in its full year earnings estimate.

Leighton Holdings and its possible new big shareholder from Spain seem to have sorted out their impending relationship.

Yet another profit downgrade from Leighton Holdings yesterday, a move that saw the shares lose 7% of their value in late trading, or well over $2 each.

Leighton Holdings has stepped up its pressure on both Australian regulators the Spanish shareholder bidding for German parent (of Leighton) Hochtief AG.

The boardroom and share register instability hitting Leighton Holdings hasn’t, so far, impacted on the company’s ability to win big contracts here and offshore.

Leighton Holdings revealed a new big contract yesterday and confirmed finally that long time CEO Wal King is to retire.

Leighton Holdings CEO, Wal King, seems to going all out to make the market aware that the company is on track to make its guidance.

Shares in Leighton Holdings rebounded solidly yesterday after the company delivered on a promise made in May to reveal some big contracts wins.

Investors were scared, fearful and jumping at shadows yesterday in many sectors.

Leighton Contractors’ HWE Mining has been awarded a $344 million contract to provide mine development services at Rio Tinto’s Mesa A iron ore operation in Western Australia.

Leighton Asia, a subsidiary of Leighton Holdings, has secured three new projects worth $US300 million in Hong Kong and the Philippines.

Shares in construction business, Leighton Holdings (LEI), rose up as much as 1.7% to $58.47 on Friday after it said its wholly owned subsidiary John Holland was awarded a $625 million Sugarloaf Pipeline Project in Melbourne.

Leighton Holdings (LEI) rose by as much as 3.5% today after it announced that its wholly owned subsidiary Leighton International has entered into a long-term joint venture to undertake contracting of major engineering and construction projects in Abu Dhabi.

Shares in construction company Leighton Holdings (LEI) rose by as much as 3.29% to $59.63 after the company said its wholly owned subsidiary, The John Holland Group, won a $117 million contract with Melbourne Airport.

So what happened at Leighton Holdings yesterday? A great result, beating guidance and the market gives it the thumbs down.

The 2007 financial year is turning out to be a bonanza for shareholders in construction giant, Leighton Holdings.

For the second time in three months the company has boosted its earnings outlook for 2007 and 2008.

The latest upgrade in earnings has seen the shares push towards the $40 level.

That was after the shares rose through $20 and $30 on the back of numerous new contracts here and in Asia and the Middle East, sharply higher interim earnings and then some takeover speculation.

In fact the shares have more than doubled from under $18 at the time of the 2006 final profit announcement last August and yesterday when they traded as high as $40.26 before settling back around $39.40, up $1.50 on the day.

A tightly held float helps put a turbo under the share price: Hochtief AG of Germany owns 55 per cent of Leighton (which is in turn owned 25 per cent by the ACS construction group of Spain).

Apart from the small float, the reason for the rapid rise isn’t hard to see: Leighton has been riding the resources, infrastructure and construction booms here and throughout Asia.

The company earned $276 million after tax in 2006 and yesterday upgraded the 2007 figure to a rise of 55 per cent, and a further improvement in the following year. That would put net earnings around $427 million for 2007.

That’s above the forecast made when the interim profit was announced in February. Profit after tax jumped 61 per cent to just over $190 million for the half to December and LEI said that second half earnings would boost the full year by 45 per cent.

“The Group’s already high level of work in hand should be maintained at similar levels over the second half of the financial year, “directors said.

“Providing significant momentum, the work in hand is expected to produce strong levels of revenue for the period and full year revenue of approximately $12 billion.”

Yesterday’s statement made it clear that those conditions had continued.

Leighton said operating net profit for the nine months to March 31 jumped to $273 million (almost as much as earned in 2006), from $169 million in the same period last year.

One of the sectors riding the resources and infrastructure booms very nicely has been civil engineering and construction.

Quietly, without too much fuss, Leighton Holdings, the country’s biggest civil engineer and contractor, saw its share price rise $1.47 at one stage yesterday before settling back to close 88c higher at $31.37.

If you had to use a short phrase or two to describe Leighton Holdings, it would be ubiquitous and highly profitable and becoming more so with news yesterday that 2007 earnings could hit a net $300 million.