Lend Lease takes AU$17.8m hit thanks to failed Syntheo venture

The full cost of the Syntheo joint venture can now be counted, as Lend Lease has detailed an AU$17.8 million loss in its full-year financial statement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

The size of the Syntheo loss pales in comparison to the size of the profit that the multi-national property and construction juggernaut posted. Overall, Lend Lease Group recorded a 10 percent increase in statutory profit to take it to AU$551.6 million for the year.

"The group finished the financial year with a pipeline of construction backlog revenue of approximately AU$17.2 billion and a global development pipeline with an estimated end value of approximately AU$37.4 billion," said Lend Lease CEO Steve McCann.

Lend Lease's partner in Syntheo, Service Stream, had already reported an expected hit to its bottom line (PDF) of AU$20 million to give it an expected full-year loss of AU$13 million.

Syntheo walked away from its NBN contracts earlier this month, after coming to a mutual arrangement with NBN Co not to renew its construction contracts that were due to expire later this year.

The original value of the contracts for NBN construction in the Northern Territory, South Australia, and Western Australia was AU$315 million.

NBN CEO, Mike Quigley, said at the time that he did not expect Syntheo's withdrawal from NBN construction to impact the overall cost or expected completion date of the project.