ACTIVITY in the building industry is expected to slow significantly this year as residential and nonresidential property developers feel the strain of higher interest rates, inflation and electricity problems.

Interest rates have gone up 4,5 percentage points since June 2006, pushing household debt costs to 11% of disposable income. This curbed consumer spending and halted a seven year rally in property prices.

With more interest rate hikes expected this year as the Reserve Bank battles to rein in inflation, analysts say the building industry is expected to weaken even further.

The sector has been experiencing a downturn since late last year, but the slowdown is said to be quite significant in the residential property development market.

Statistics SA figures released last week show building plans passed for the private sector in the first quarter were 1,7% down on the previous first quarter’s.

At the same time, residential building plans passed (half the total) fell 8,9% in a trend stemming from higher interest rates and lower property prices.

Wayne Basson, an industry analyst at international credit insurer Coface, said building plans passed for new houses levelled towards the end of last year, and were declining. This suggested a turn for the worse in building activity this year.

About 5%-8% fewer houses were expected to be built this year as developers felt the pinch of higher interest rates and building materials costs. The cost of materials such as cement and bricks rose as manufacturers tried to keep up with rising producer price inflation, which stood at 11,8% in March.

Cement sales, a key building indicator, peaked, and the growth rate fell sharply.

“It is anticipated that the number of residential buildings completed this year will decline 5%-8%. Even nonresidential building plans passed have declined, despite this sector expecting to show an upturn,” Basson said.

FNB industry analyst John Loos believes that the completions decline will be even higher than that.

“I believe that we may have a decline in completions in excess of 20% for 2008 in SA as a whole, which implies a significant further deterioration in the level of residential building activity,” said Loos.

He said electricity supply problems were also restricting the pace of new developments in some cases.

“On top of all of this, the global economic slowdown adds to prospects for slower economic growth, and thus job creation and residential demand in 2008,” he said.

Growth in the lower end of the housing market was, however, expected to remain robust as the government continued to spend substantially in a bid to reduce the housing backlog among the poor.

Construction company Aveng has appointed Roger Jardine as its new chief executive.

Protech Khuthele expects headline earnings and earnings per share for the year ended February 28 to be between 70% and 75% higher

Nigerian industrial conglomerate Dangote Cement has acquired a 45% stake in Sephaku Cement, which is building a R3bn plant in North West

Cashbuild is reaping the rewards of staying away from risky credit offerings and selling to lower-income South Africans who are unaffected by rising interest rates

Cashbuild Limited plans to open eight to 10 new stores between January and June this year

While the residential and nonresidential construction market is heading for slow growth this year because of higher interest rates, the civil construction sector is expected to grow 33%.

Local construction companies stand to benefit from the boom that is expected to carry on until at least 2015, influenced largely by governmental infrastructure spending of R560bn over the next three years.

Coupled with this is Eskom’s R1-trillion budget to build power stations, Transnet’s building of railway lines, ports and fuel pipelines, and private sector expansion programmes.

Strong demand and rising commodity prices are also driving expansion in the mining sector, which will benefit the construction sector.

According to Reserve Bank data, the value of construction works reached an estimated R46bn last year, a 32% increase in real terms from R34,7bn in 2006.

South African Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors (Safcec) economist Pierre Blaauw says the estimate is an annualised figure, with the final number due at the end of this month. “Turnover this high was last seen during the construction boom in the 1970s, when the industry recorded a figure breaching the R40bn mark for the first time,” Blaauw says.

“Safcec’s numbers indicate growth between 25% and 30% for the civil engineering industry alone last year.”

He says the good news is that spending on the government's R560bn infrastructure budget started only last year and that this year and next should see further growth for the industry.

“We expect a 13%-16% increase in civil engineering industry turnover this year. It may sound small compared to last year’s record number, but this comes off a higher base,” he says.

Despite challenging macro economic conditions, infrastructure spending is steaming ahead, which bodes well for the industry, which has experienced 80% growth in turnover since 2004.

Blaauw says infrastructure spending is a prerequisite to maintain economic growth.

Blaauw says the biggest challenge the civil engineering industry will face this year will be capacity constraints. Companies will need to increase their capacity by acquiring new capital assets, locating and securing the necessary skills, buying up smaller firms, and expanding their education and training budgets.

Most big construction companies are already at work on projects such as the Gautrain, stadiums, and upgrading of airports and ports.

The likes of Murray & Roberts, Aveng and Group Five are either part of infrastructure development programmes or are bidding with international groups to build power stations and big projects.

Cadiz African Harvest portfolio manager Rajay Ambekar says gross fixed capital formation had peaked at about 30% in 1976 but has since been coming down to the current 15% of gross domestic product (GDP). “The target is 25% of GDP,” Ambekar says.

International construction companies are partnering with local companies that are unable to cope with the load and lack expertise, especially for big projects. “No South African company can build a power station on its own. A lot of civil construction would be done by local companies while technical expertise is brought by international companies,” Ambekar says.

However, he says there is a risk of delays that are outside companies’ control, which could be costly. Blaauw agrees, saying there will be more supply-side constraints than demand-side constraints.

According to Statistics SA, the construction industry showed the biggest jump of all economic sectors in acquiring capital assets from 2005 to 2006, recording a 73% increase. Salaries and wages rose 16,6%. Blaauw says it is likely the industry will have doubled in size between 2004 and next year. .

In 2006 there were four large international construction firms registered with the Construction Industry Development Board, rising to 11 last year.

“We are likely to see a further increase in competition from abroad over the next two to three years, as well as from smaller companies growing into larger firms able to compete for bigger contracts.”

South African construction and building group Stefanutti & Bressan said on Tuesday that it has agreed to proceed with a transaction to acquire the entire issued share capital of construction company Stocks Limited for a total consideration of R1.121-billion.

It said that the acquisition would enable the group to access increased scale and critical mass to help it secure major construction and civil projects, as well as offer it a bigger pool of resources to service the construction sector.

Another reason for the deal is Stocks Ltd's presence and track record in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which gives Stefannuti opportunities as it exposes it to the UAE's robust construction market, it added.

The company said the deal would also increase its BEE credentials, raising black direct shareholding from 11.3% to 18.3% of the total issued share capital subsequent to the proposed transaction.

However, the transaction will be subject to shareholder, board and regulatory approval, and the effective date of the acquisition will be the 26th day of the month in which the final transaction agreements are signed.

As expected, in Finance Minister Trevor Manuel’s budget, an enormous amount of money is to be spent on infrastructure.

As I mentioned yesterday, there’s no shortage of money to help alleviate poverty and develop our economy — the problem is to manage the resources efficiently.

For construction companies — as I cited from Group Five’s results for the half-year ended December 31 — a fundamental investment problem is the difficulties in managing the awarding and implementation of contracts.

In due course, the infrastructural plans in the budget will be implemented and Group Five and other construction companies will benefit from these.

“In due course” is, of course, an elastic period of time. Even so, there is some solid evidence that the construction sector is in a growth phase that could last at least beyond 2015.

In its 2007 financial year-end (June 30) presentation, Group Five showed a chart of the market outlook for the construction sector. The chart was sourced from Stellenbosch University’s Bureau of Economic Research. The figures used were of real (inflation excluded) investment in construction works.

The chart confirms that the sector is in a five-year growth cycle. In 2003, total construction work was valued at about R25bn, which in real terms was below the figure in 1991 when it last enjoyed a growth phase.

In 1981, the peak year of previous state infrastructural growth, total construction work amounted to R40 billion. Only last year was that figure again reached.

Stellenbosch’s bureau forecast takes this figure to more than R65 billion by 2015, of which the public sector is expected to contribute R50 billion.

Five years ago, Group Five’s share price was about R5,30. Its historic price:earnings ratio then was around five, and its share price trend was boringly flat. But as the cycle sector progressively improved, the company’s turnover and profits rose and the share price responded positively.

In the 2003 financial year the company’s headline earnings per share were 120c. Last year they were 283c. The share price is now at about R51,50 — about 10 times the 2003 figure — but the historic price:earnings ratio is more than 17.

Murray and Roberts (M&R), the construction counter we hold in the Private Investor portfolio, is on an historic price:earnings ratio of more than 20. Rather than believing M&R is overpriced, there is good reason to believe that Group Five is underpriced.

My guesstimate of its forward fully diluted headline earnings per share for the financial year ended June 30 this year is about 330c, giving the share a forward price:earnings ratio of about 15,5 — a bit low relative to earnings growth expectation of about 30% 40% over the medium term.

Group Five also looks an interesting buy on the technical indicators. The share price is still in a bear trend, but the price has broken through all its moving averages. It has a count to R58, a less probable count to R63 and its resistance is around R52.

Swiss group Holcim said it had increased its stake in Chinese company Huaxin Cement to 39.9% from 26.1% for $282m