Group Five is one of the big construction firms that have continued to see growth in earnings, benefiting largely from the government’s multibillion-rand spending on infrastructure.

CEO Mike Upton said earlier this year the group would continue to target the government’s infrastructure spending programme for future growth as work in its overseas markets and the private sector had come under pressure.

“Our strategy — a two-dimensional strategy of product and geographic diversification with a balanced portfolio of businesses that provide a higher blended margin to that of a purely South African construction business — made us much more resilient than before,” Upton said.

He said the worsening economic conditions in some of its markets had put some customers under pressure, especially in mining and in private sector building activity, both in SA and the Middle East. With commodity prices plummeting in recent months, the mining sector, which provides a considerable chunk of work to several construction companies, had scaled back on capital expenditure.

About 80% of its R13bn construction order book was already from its South African operations, and further construction contracts worth about R2bn were expected to be announced soon, Upton said.

The firm yesterday said the expected full-year earnings were calculated using the fully diluted number of shares which included the dilution from the shares held by the iLima Consortium at each year end.