Lend Lease on 50-year project high

Lend Lease has increased its development project business to $37.4 billion, the largest in its 50-year history, dominated by Barangaroo South, Darling Harbour and the Elephant and Castle site in London.

The diversified construction, development and infrastructure group will focus on its global construction pipeline of $17.2 billion across America, Australia and Asia, executives said in a September-quarter update.

The residential, retirement and apartment business - to which Lend Lease has a 43 per cent exposure in the Victorian market and 32 per cent in NSW - had a 20 per cent growth in overall sales volumes in the quarter compared with the June quarter.

The group, which does not issue earnings guidance, said it had a strong medium-term outlook from which it would "extract significant embedded earnings".

Lend Lease's chief executive and managing director Steve McCann said the group would look to finance projects through joint ventures to enable continued investment in the development pipeline in 2014 and 2015.

Mr McCann and divisional directors said there was strong growth in the development business but the tougher macro conditions in construction remained, which were offset by the stronger pipeline of economic infrastructure and public-private partnership projects.

Mr McCann said Lend Lease would pursue development opportunities in Asia, while in America there was a strong construction workbook.