It is Monday evening and deadline time again! Half-year results are to be published in just a week from now. The Group Remuneration and Audit Committee meetings are planned over the next few days and papers for the Murray & Roberts Holdings board must still be finalised and circulated. I am working from my hotel in Perth having just signed-off on this edition of Robust. I cannot get back to Johannesburg until Wednesday morning and that is via Singapore or Kuala Lumpur as there is no direct flight on a Tuesday. How did that happen?

Norbert Jorek and I attended our second Clough Limited board meeting today and they publish their results on Wednesday. I flew in on Sunday night from Dubai after we had held our two International and the Middle East Board meetings on Saturday. Roger Rees and I left South Africa on Friday evening, joining Craig Lawrence and Sandi Linford plus Peter Adams from the United Kingdom. Norbert had been in Indonesia for the previous three days visiting Clough’s 83% subsidiary Petrosea, which is the largest indigenous contractor in that country.
 

Sean Flanagan held the first board meeting of Murray & Roberts Cementation today, combining Cementation Africa and Murray & Roberts RUC with Henry Laas as managing director. Remuneration statistics inform me that the acquisition of Cementation has brought 13 000 people and R1,15 billion of payroll into the Group, representing 40% of our total payroll cost of R2,75 billion. We spend R2,2 billion of our payroll in South Africa (80%); R100 million in the rest of SADC; R100 million in Middle East; and R350 million in Canada.

Last week it was operating company audit reviews and the Murray & Roberts Limited board met on Wednesday and reviewed remuneration proposals for the year. This has become a more organised process although we have had to face the reality that inflation is down below 5% and that demand for quality people is increasing.

Our forward order book has shown improvement over the past six months, further enhanced by the USD1,0 billion Dubai Airport contract. Our results reflect the many structural changes in our company and markets this year, but my colleagues and I are confident that we have made the right choices to secure a better future for the company, our shareholders and people into the future.

Brian Bruce
Group chief executive
Murray & Roberts