Construction firm Built’s earnings double, so does dividend – to $42m
Construction company Built doubled its dividend to $42.5 million after the contractor’s profit nearly doubled in the year to June, but its director and sole owner Marco Rossi stands to receive less than one-third of the total.
Built’s revenue jumped more than 50 per cent to $3.1 billion and comprehensive earnings nearly doubled to $60.2 million in a year in which the company boosted its workbook with health and defence projects, financial documents filed with corporate regulator ASIC show.
But Rossi, who co-founded Built in 1998 with Paul Attard – who has since left the company – and remains its sole shareholder, will receive only about $13 million worth of dividends, as the company spent $29.2 million during the year to buy out the equity of former chief executive Brett Mason when he left last year.
The company said the dividend was distributed “for the benefit of all shareholders” during the last financial year.
The builder of projects including the $1.4 billion Atlassian Central and Charter Hall’s $1.8 billion Chifley South office towers in Sydney, as well as manufacturing facilities for Korean defence contractor Hanwha in Geelong, is the latest of Australia’s large private builders to report a market pick-up, along with peers Richard Crookes Constructions and Hansen Yuncken.
And a pick-up in its EBIT profit margin to 2.9 per cent from 2.5 per cent in FY24 shows that commercial building, a sector that struggled through the post-pandemic era, is returning to profit.
“Key sectors where we’re seeing continued and sustained growth include health, defence, data centres, and social infrastructure,” Built’s construction head David Paterson said.
During the year the company started construction on health projects – some of which were extensions of existing contracts – including Queensland’s Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Expansion Hospital, Barwon Women’s and Children’s Hospital and Ballarat Base Hospital in Victoria, a new Mount Barker Hospital in regional South Australia and St John of God Midland Private Hospital in WA.
It also secured new defence projects in WA, Queensland and NSW.
Like contractors BMD and Hansen Yuncken, Built is investing in technology to enable it to take on more work sustainably.
“The industry is on the cusp of a productivity boom if we can embrace digitisation,” Paterson said.
“Having invested over $70 million in digital systems and innovation over the past seven to eight years, we’re seeing this long-term investment pay off with significant productivity benefits on our sites.”
AI had the potential to boost construction efficiency further, he said.
Rossi has expanded the company he founded from a construction contracting into property development in recent years, but the earnings lodged with ASIC gave no breakdown between construction and development of other types of revenue.
“The principal activity of the group during the financial year was the undertaking of construction contracts,” the earnings report says.
