Lend Lease management restructure following Abigroup irregularities

There has been a restructure of Australian management at Lend Lease following profit reporting problems with construction subsidiary Abigroup.

The Australian portion of the business will be split into two divisions – property, and construction and infrastructure.

Mark Menhinnitt, the former chief executive of Lend Lease in Australia, will become the chief executive of construction and infrastructure Australia.

Tarun Gupta, the current head of investment management, will become the chief executive of property Australia.

And building executive Peter Brecht, who joined Lend Lease as part of the Abigroup acquisition, has resigned.

In September Lend Lease stood down executives at its construction and engineering subsidiary Abigroup after identifying “certain discrepancies and issues in relation to the reporting and recognition of profits and losses on two projects”.

Lend Lease says the discrepancies involved the “potential under-reporting of the anticipated profit on one project and the potential under-reporting of the anticipated loss on another project” and relate to annual results to June 30.

Responsibility for the operational and financial oversight of its construction business, including Abigroup, was been assumed by David Saxelby, who is remaining as chief operating officer and Andrew Muller chief financial officer.

Lend Lease have announced that the accounting irregularities will make no difference to the 2012 profit or the expected figure for 2013.