Lend Lease confirms property struggles
Lend Lease has confirmed the negativity of property investment, including direct property, by downgrading its profit expectations.
In an announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange today, Lend Lease said that its statutory profit after tax was expected to reduce to $265.4 million through adjustment to carrying value of inventory for UK Communities and negative property investment valuation.
Lend Lease confirmed it expected to deliver a net operating profit after tax of $447.1 million for the year ended June 30, but said that in light of continuing difficult market conditions it had taken the prudent step of writing down the carrying value of inventory in its UK Communities business.
It said that, in addition, given continued expansion in retail capitalisation rates, Lend Lease’s profit and loss statement would include a reduction in property investment revaluations of $60.2 million after tax for the year.
Looking into the new financial year, Lend Lease said that the continuing volatility in global credit and property markets made it difficult to provide earnings guidance with a great degree of confidence, but at this stage it expected net operating profit after tax to be around 10 to 15 per cent below that of 2008.
AUTHOR
Mike Taylor
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