Global property and infrastructure company Lend Lease Group (ASX: LLC) has reported a $618.6 million profit for the financial year ending June 30, 2015.
Here's what investors need to know:
- Profit after tax declined compared with the prior year's results which benefitted from the one-off sale of a major UK shopping centre. Profit for 2015 came in at $618.6 million which equated to 106.8 cents per share (cps)
- A final dividend of 27 cps has been declared, taking full year distributions to 54 cps
- The development pipeline is up 19% on the prior year to $44.9 billion
- The group has record pre-sold revenue of $5.2 billion across residential apartments and communities – a 109% increase on the prior period
- The construction backlog stands at $17.3 billion, up 7% year on year
- Funds under management surged 31% to $21.3 billion
What now:
Lend Lease is something of a quiet achiever in the large cap, blue-chip space. The company's share price is up over 100% in the past five years, however on a one-year basis the stock has given up all of its early gains to be sitting roughly flat over the past 52 weeks.
With such an impressive list of operating metrics there would appear to be solid drivers of further growth in the current financial year. Management's assessment for the company's outlook is similarly upbeat.
One consensus forecast (according to data from Morningstar) for earnings per share is 119.9 cents per share, which looks achievable given the positive momentum Lend Lease appears to enjoy.
In early Monday morning trade the stock has fallen 4.6% to $13.65, implying a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.4 times, a seemingly undemanding multiple for a market-leading business such as this.
