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In a busy day for corporate and economic news, construction company WBHO said it upped its profit and would pay an interim dividend. In international news, JetBlue and Spirit Airlines formally pulled the plug Monday on their merger, about six weeks after a federal judge ruled it violated US antitrust law.
Construction firm Wilson Bayly Holmes-Ovcon (WBHO) reported on Tuesday that activity in SA's mining and energy industries helped boost continuing revenue by 29% to R13 billion in its six months to end-December, while headline earnings rose about 9.8% to R477.5 million. Its roads and earthworks division experienced strong growth across all key sectors in South Africa where infrastructure projects for the mining and energy sectors accounted for half of revenue, and it grew its revenue almost 60% to R4.2 billion. Its building and civil engineering division grew its revenue 19% to R5.8 billion. After a prolonged period of sluggish activity within traditional civil engineering markets, revenue from the civil engineering division jumped by 62% on the back of improved order book levels. Construction was centred on various mining infrastructure projects at the Two Rivers Platinum mine in Mpumalanga, the Tronox Namakwa Sands mineral mine in the Western Cape and the Der Brochen mine in Limpopo, it said, while there was also activity on various energy products. WBHO said it had maintained its order book at about R32.2 billion while it declared a 230c interim dividend, having last paid such a dividend in 2018. Shares of the group, valued at about R9.6 billion on the JSE, were unchanged after the announcement but have risen by almost a quarter over the past one year. WBHO lost almost 2% on Tuesday but has still gained almost 21% in the past year.
