Edited Press Release FRANKFURT -(Dow Jones)- German construction company Hochtief AG said Tuesday it keeps up its earnings forecast for 2008 despite its unit Leighton Holdings Ltd.'s value adjustment of listed participating interests.
In the last few years, the Australian government started major projects to improve transportation infrastructure. Many projects, e.g. toll roads, are realized as concession projects in cooperation with private-sector partners. Leighton is also involved in projects of this type.
For years now, infrastructure funds, pension funds and private investors have been showing great interest in these projects as asset class. This is not least one reason why many projects are independently listed on the stock market at a very early stage already. During the financial crisis, the share prices of these listed project companies also dropped. As, however, their business prospects have not changed, the current stock prices do no longer reflect the infrastructure projects' real worth.
Despite this, the Board of Directors of Leighton Holdings Limited now resolved to make a writedown to the market capitalization on the basis of the current stock prices for all listed commitments as of Dec. 31, 2008. To this end, a value adjustment of approximately EUR103.7 million (AUD200 million) is made for the fourth calendar quarter.
Leighton's operative business continues to be in a very good condition. In the fourth quarter, the order backlog grew by an additional EUR881 million (AUD1.7 billion) to EUR19.2 billion (AUD37 billion).
Earnings before the above-mentioned value adjustment increased by 8% on the prior year. For the entire fiscal year ending on Jun. 30, 2009, Leighton expects unchanged earnings growth and a dividend at prior-year level. Against the background of the positive business development at the other corporate divisions, we so far assume that HOCHTIEF will keep up the communicated earnings forecast for the entire Group. This means that the Groups continues to expect new orders and order backlog above the high prior-year level, group sales to once more top the record level achieved in 2007, pretax profit above the high level achieved in 2007 and consolidated net profit in excess of the prior-year figure.
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Publié le 06 janvier 2009 Copyright © 2009 Dowjones