The Lendlease Group (ASX: LLC) share price closed 1.35% lower on Monday after the property and infrastructure group released its first-half FY21 financial results.
Lendlease is a multinational property giant, with operations in project management, construction, real estate investment and development.
What did Lendlease report?
Like many companies on the ASX, COVID-19 impacted Lendlease’s operations in the first half of FY21.
Lendlease reported a 29.6% decline in revenue compared to the prior corresponding period (pcp) to $5,213 million.
Core operating EBITDA declined 23% to $405 million from the $525 million reported in HY20, however, this marked an improvement compared to the second half of FY20.
Lendlease confirmed the balance sheet was in good shape at the end of 2020, with the group reporting gearing of 12.9% and $4.7 billion in liquidity.
Management commentary
Speaking on Lendlease’s first-half results, Group Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Steve McCann, commented:
“The challenging operating conditions continued to affect each of the segments. However, the range of mitigating actions that were taken post the onset of the pandemic has enabled the Group to navigate this environment and take advantage of potential development and investment opportunities. The weaker market environment provided an opportunity to secure new urbanisation projects alongside investment partners on attractive terms”.
As at 31 December 2020, Lendlease reported it has an urbanisation project pipeline with an estimated value of $96.2 billion. Of this, the jewell in the crown is a $20 billion urban renewal project in San Francisco to be completed in partnership with tech giant Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL).
Dividends slashed
The group remains profitable, reporting a statutory profit after tax of $196 million, down 37%.
This enabled Lendlease to declare a dividend, albeit 50% lower than that of the pcp. Eligible shareholders will receive a 15 cent per share interim dividend, partially franked. This translates to an annualised dividend yield of around 2.6%.
Compared to Lendlease, I think there are more reliable ASX dividend shares available elsewhere on the market.
