Message from the CE

Dear Readers

The reporting season is upon us again, its timing as regular as clockwork but its outcome more variable, like the weather. And this year it is the consequence of the global economic crisis that has introduced extreme variability into our lives and business.

Murray & Roberts has a resilient business model which relies on diversity across many dimensions to ensure sustainability of performance. So despite the economic crisis and recession in our markets, the Group has delivered another credible performance in the financial year to 30 June 2009. But there has been a cost. We have shed about 7 000 jobs since November last year and our revenues are down by about R4,0 billion compared to our original budget prepared in April 2008.

We lost or walked away from about R20 billion of order book in the four months between November last year and March this year. Our operational leadership teams have been exemplary in their engagement of this challenge and we have not suffered any financial consequence as a result.

This is proof that when we appoint executives who know, are committed to and then focus on what has to be done, it will be done. It is the confusion and uncertainty that comes with inadequate experience that cripples performance. In this edition of Robust we introduce our new commitment to the future sustainable performance of our Group, in a changed world severely damaged by an economic crisis brought about by unsustainable behaviour.

We call it Reframing Murray & Roberts – Same Picture Different Context. We are bringing new executive leadership into the top of the organisation to complement the capacity we already have serving the market sector we know best – engineering and construction.

We will be consolidating our operations into six large business clusters, three of which will be focused on our domestic and regional market and three focused on global and international markets. We will have more about this in the next edition of Robust.

Brian Bruce