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Leighton restructure tipped: report

Engineering firm to face 'brutal' shake-up in wake of appointment of new CEO.
By · 24 Mar 2014
By ·
24 Mar 2014
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Leighton Holdings’ (LEI) new chief executive returns to Australia this week and will soon put his stamp on the business, according to The Australian Financial Review.

Marcelino Fernandez Verdes -- who also runs Germany’s Hochtief, which lobbed in a $1.2 billion takeover bid for Leighton earlier this month -- is expected to meet with the leaders of Leighton’s operating companies ahead of what a former Leighton executive believes will be a “brutal” restructure.

“Leighton will be more profitable on a margin basis but it will be a smaller company and Fernandez Verdes will also sell things off to allow cash to be distributed back up to Hochtief and ACS to help them with their ­balance sheets,” the executive told the AFR.

Hochtief, which in turn is controlled by Spain’s ACS, launched a full takeover bid for Leighton on March 10.

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