Ann: Preliminary Final Report , page-3

This stock has produced a huge result and the market has already acknowledged that this morning. Two months ago the company forecast a Net profit after tax of $1.5m for the year. The company announced today a result more than double that. The NPAT was $3.27m. This is a turnaround of $5.9m on the first half loss which included losses from the discontinued formworks business. The company has announced a 2.5c fully franked dividend. The work in hand is at a very strong $202m and almost a half of this is in the very strong Rock Division. Only 16 percent of the work in hand is in the Victorian construction market where the company has had its difficulties in the past. Net debt to equity has been reduced massively from 42 percent to 12 percent over the last year due to a capital raising, high cash flows and lower working capital requirements.

The one thing that I would like to have heard the company say is that the formworks losses are "dead, buried and cremated". But the latest result certainly suggests that future problems in that regard appear to be of little concern.

Prior to running into trouble with the formworks division, this company earned earnings per share of 27.9c in 2007/2008 so I have hopes that the recovery in share price has only just begun. If you ignore the formworks loss or assume that the second half result can be continued into the future, and the directors appear confident that results will continue to improve, then even at 65c this stock is selling on a PE of around 3.5.

GPASAS