Sensational-Adelaide.com

AVJennings firmly back in the black after the GFC

* Maurice Dunlevy
* From: The Australian
* February 10, 2011 12:00AM

LISTED residential developer AVJennings has posted a solid $10.6 million half-year profit as the company continues to rebuild its business after the global financial crisis.

AVJ chief executive Peter Summers said yesterday that while the headline result was a big improvement over the previous corresponding period's $3.2m after-tax net profit, he was more pleased with a six-month improvement in the fundamentals of the business.

"We need to look beyond results and focus on the things that are driving those results," he said. AVJ, which did not have any significant writedowns during the GFC, returned to profit 12 months ago.

For the 2010 full year it recorded a profit of $9.6m.

For the latest half year, AVJ reported a 27 per cent fall in operating revenue, down from $137.3m to $100.2m, but will pay a 1c half-year dividend after not paying a dividend in the corresponding period last year.

Mr Summers described the half-year result, which included the addition of 2700 lots to AVJ's growing land bank, as the second stage in building long-term sustainable shareholder value and delivering improved returns.

"The first stage was heavily focused on capital management following changed debt market conditions flowing out of the GFC and addressing the loss-making contract building operation," he said. "Following the sale of the contract building division, the company has been able to move more strongly into the second stage of the process, which is to increase the focus on performance of its developments business which develops land, integrated housing and low-rise apartment projects."

AVJ completed a $21.3m sale of its troubled contract building division to Japanese company Sekusui House in August last year, but yesterday's results included a loss of almost $1m from the division, which typically built freestanding houses on land not owned by the company.

According to Mr Summers, half-year improvements came from improved systems and cost structures, as well as a replenished 11,500-lot land bank that is equal to five years of property sales.

Four new projects, totalling 2700 building blocks, were announced by AVJ in December.

The largest was at Penfield in Adelaide's outer north, where a joint venture with the South Australian government's Land Management Corporation will build about 1750 homes on a greenfield site.

The company has not given full-year guidance, but at last December's annual general meeting Mr Summers said he expected a strong result.

AVJ shares closed at 53c, up 10.4 per cent.

Mants wrote:I keep forgetting to post this, but there is a tower crane somewhere within the Glenside Hospital site. Any idea what it's for?

AG wrote:

Mants wrote:I keep forgetting to post this, but there is a tower crane somewhere within the Glenside Hospital site. Any idea what it's for?

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A Lady from The Park Lands Preservation Association spoke about seven storey apartments along Greenhill Road, "Ruining our way of life"..

capitalist wrote:so people shouldn't use the parklands and now shouldn't look at them