Lendlease Inadvertently Reveals Full-Year Financial Results

Global property developer Lendlease has inadvertently released its full-year financial results three weeks ahead of schedule due to a technical glitch. The results revealed an 8.7% jump in full-year profit to $758.6 million, up $60.4 million on the previous year. 

The development heavyweight is responsible for significant projects including Sydney's Barangaroo South, the London Olympic Athletes Village, the Sydney Opera House the Petronas Twin Towers and the National September 11 Memorial and Museum.

The diversified property group's error prompted inquiries from the corporate watchdog.

"While preparing for our annual report online release scheduled for 28 August, a testing environment appears to have been inadvertently made accessible to the public through an automated search engine," Lendlease said.

"Unfortunately, six pages of the draft annual report appear to have been accessed [...] The breach has been rectified and all further testing has ceased." 

The Australian 

reported that brokerage Macquarie were surprised by Lendlease's inadvertent disclosure:

The Urban Developer

 has provided an overview of Lendlease's current $49.9 billion development pipeline.
Australia

Lendlease currently have nine urbanisation projects and are active in four gateway cities. They have also recently completed three new commercial office towers and the world’s largest timber building. Lendlease has created over 50 masterplanned communities - with 16 currently in development - across Australia. 

Where the developer sees a great opportunity within the Australian market is the aged care sector as they've placed a large emphasis on retirement living. The report states that their current ambition is to upgrade thousands of units in the coming decades to accommodate for aged care living.

Their portfolio aims to provide unique housing options for senior residents, enabling them to maintain independent lifestyles. Lendlease also have plans to introduce a continuum of care offering by developing adjacent aged care facilities and partnering with specialist providers to manage these facilities.

The Americas

Lendlease currently have residential projects underway in Chicago, Boston and New York where they have close to 1,000 apartment units in delivery. Their strategy in America is focused strongly around urbanisation projects in gateway cities. Around three quarters of these units are residential rental, or multifamily, product.

Lumina is the largest residential development (130,064 sq m) under construction in San Francisco with over 650 condominium units.

Lumina is comprised of four residential structures that contain 656 residential units resting on a common sub-structure.

In addition, the developer has entered the United States infrastructure sector with the acquisition of a mobile telecommunications tower portfolio.
Asia

Lendlease's portfolio in Asia consists strongly of retail development. Their Paya Lebar Quarter development in Singapore is currently under construction and consists of 7 buildings across the 99-year leasehold site. The end development value is at an estimated SGD$3.2 billion and the gross floor area of the development is circa 1.8 million square feet. 

Paya Lebar Quarter will be a centrally located international mixed-use development and a key catalyst to the URA masterplan to regenerate Paya Lebar.

Europe

Lendlease currently have multiple projects partnering with governments and local communities to create sustainable residential, commercial and retail precincts.

They have recently been selected as the joint venture partner with the local council for the $8 billion urbanisation project in Haringey, London. According to the developer, their track record of delivery via the integrated model, as seen at Elephant & Castle, was critical in securing this opportunity. The Haringey development would incorporate 6400 dwellings, with more than 40 per cent of these to be affordable homes.

A part of Lendlease's European portfolio is the Marino Eco-village masterplan they'll be project managing which is due for completion in 2030. The Eco-village area is approximately 508.175 sq m, with a buildable area of 125.000 sq m. The project is part of a development programme pursued by the Marino Municipality which includes the development of new residential areas for a total of 20.000 inhabitants.

The project guidelines for the Eco-village are:

• Ethics: a substantial housing component is allocated for specific social categories, as elderly, traditional families, couples and young people, in order to create an active and vital environment

• Sustainability: the entire project foresees a reduced area consumption and an attention to the natural characteristics of the environment, in order to be efficient from an energetic point of view.

The Fund IDeA FIMIT Sviluppo is developing the Ecovillage project, located in Marino, close to the city of Rome.

In the released report, Lendlease revealed that earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation is set to rise 13.9 per cent to $1.2 billion during the year to end June. Distributions per security are set to be 66c this year, up from 60c.