Lend Lease records $18m loss from Syntheo

Lend Lease, the half owner of troubled NBN contractor Syntheo, has recorded a $17.8 million loss related to the joint venture in its last financial year.

Lend Lease today released its results for the financial year ended June 30. It was until recently a 50 percent owner of Syntheo with Service Stream but has since bought out the remainder of the company.

Service Stream forecast a $20 million loss on the venture before divesting its share.

Lend Lease will control the delivery of the remainder of Syntheo’s NBN obligations, which should be completed in early 2014. 

Earlier this month Syntheo announced it would walk away from its two remaining NBN rollout contracts in Western and Southern Australia, after being blamed by NBN Co for a reduction in forecasted premises passed.

It had previously been forced to hand back the remainder of its NBN rollout activities in the Northern Territory for the same reason.

A Lend Lease spokesperson said the Syntheo venture would be dissolved once the NBN work was complete.

The approximately 40 staff Lend Lease contributed to the joint venture will be merged back into the Lend Lease business. 

Lend Lease’s construction business suffered a $91.9 million drop in profit for the year to $192.8 million, which it attributed to “impacts of project underperformance in Australia and the UK” in the second half of the year.

Lend Lease’s overall Australian net profit recorded a significant rise from $76.7 million to $506.6 million, thanks to revenue from its Development business, specifically ts build of the first two commercial towers at Sydney’s $6 billion Barangaroo precinct.