London: Slowly Destroying Australia's Economy

By Rob Last edited 223 months ago
London: Slowly Destroying Australia's Economy
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Not content with beating them at rugby and then actually putting up a bit of a fight in the cricket, England (and specifically north London) seems intent on destroying the Aussie's economic infrastructure.

Of course, this being Australia versus England, there has to be some sport involved and this time it's football: the FA Cup to be precise.

If you haven't guessed by now, the main culrpit here is Wembley Stadium, and the fact that the Australian property developer Multiplex Ltd who are building it have just had to report "lower-than-expected annual profits," due to the "troubled" project due for completion in March in time for the FA Cup final in May*.

As CNN reports:

Investors, already burned by three profit warnings this year, initially axed as much as 7 percent off Multiplex shares. Its shares later regained ground to trade down 2 percent at A$3.20.

Now they've had to snip their 2006 forecast by 8.5 percent and take on a new A$8.6 million provision on the A$1.2 billion Wembley redevelopment, mainly thanks to steel and labour costs.

The firms shares have already dropped 40 percent this year and that apparently makes them "largely responsible for the flat performance of the listed property trust index".

No we have no idea what that means either, but we do know that some UK-based construction firms with their eyes on the 2012 development bids will be following this story very closely indeed.

*The FA have booked the Millennium Stadium 'just in case'.

Last Updated 18 August 2005