Job losses likely as Lend Lease restructures divisions

Lend Lease's consolidation of its construction and infrastructure businesses could lead to 250 to 300 job losses over the next few months.

It comes as chief executive and managing director Steve McCann signed on again, silencing speculation that he was looking to leave as his term was nearing expiry.

Mr McCann joined the company in 2005 and was appointed to the joint role of CEO and managing director in 2008.

Lend Lease is due to announce its full-year results on Friday. In June Mr McCann signalled profits of $540 million to $550 million for the full year, despite weakness in the construction sector.

At the time of the guidance, Mr McCann said the restructuring of its Abigroup and Baulderstone subsidiaries would lead to a duplication of jobs.

"As a result of the restructure of Lend Lease's Australian construction and infrastructure businesses, there will be some redundancies among salaried staff," a company spokesman said on Thursday.

In the June update, Mr McCann said the construction markets in Australia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa had softened in the second half of the year, contributing to reduced earnings from those regions.

The construction sector is the single biggest division for Lend Lease, contributing about 42 per cent of overall earnings.

Simon Wheatley, head of property research at Goldman Sachs, said his analysis indicated that the difficulty experienced by service-related business exposed to the domestic commodity market was likely to be limited for Lend Lease.