Ann: Trading Halt , page-30

Gregbear

The elephant in the room though has to be the blatant admission of poor tendering on large scale construction projects.

Out of the $46 billion work in hand 23% of it is large scale construction contracts (above $500m in value) a large number of these currently at low completion rates. These are likely to be fixed time, fixed price. How confident can the market be that the same tendering practises, won't make any of these projects victims of the same design and then subsequent materials blow outs?

And yes Wal King is gone, but David Stewart was COO of Leighton International for 18 months before he replaced King. Also was MD of The John Holland group for 3 years before his position at Leighton International. No doubt during this time at John Holland he would of been somewhat responsible for the large Construction tendering process for the Airport Link Project.

The above two points could cloud and disturb the large end of town long enough for us to see a sustained derating.

But agree also will be buyers who may see opportunity. If I could by it for a FY12 6% dividend yield, making some discount on earnings for the risk of a further downgrade, I may be tempted.