Lend Lease stock hammered on earnings hit LEND Lease shares slumped more than 8 per cent today after the property development group warned that weaker building conditions in the past six months would weigh on its earnings for the 2013 financial year. The announcement to the stock exchange came as Lend Lease embarks on a sweeping restructure of its construction and infrastructure business and sells down its quarter stake of a $750 million Singapore development into a new fund. Lend Lease, which has a market value of around $5 billion, develops commercial and residential real estate, public work projects such as schools and hospitals, and infrastructure such as bridges and sports stadiums. It operates in Australia, Europe, the US and Asia and its construction division is its largest, generating 42 per cent of group earnings in its previous fiscal year to June 30. Australia was the biggest contributor to group profits on a geographical basis. Conditions were weak globally in its building markets, Lend Lease said today, which would impact earnings in the year to June 30, although its Asian development, Australian infrastructure development and Australian property businesses were performing better than in the prior year, the company said. Costs from the restructure revealed today would also weigh on the bottom line. Shares in Lend Lease were down 78c to $8.57 each before midday. Despite the weaker construction earnings, chief executive Steve McCann said Lend Lease's result would be solid and in line with expectations in a tough market. "In the last six months, we have made solid progress on some of our major projects around the world, including Barangaroo in Sydney, Jem in Singapore and healthy pre-sales in Elephant and Castle in London," Mr McCann said. As part of the restructure, Lend Lease will consolidate the businesses it secured as part of its $950m Valemus acquisition during March 2011, including Abigroup, Baulderstone as well as its project management and infrastructure units. The four businesses will be rebranded and amalgamated into divisions including building, engineering and infrastructure services by August. Meanwhile, Lend Lease said its move to sell its 25 per cent share in Singaporean suburban retail and office property it owns Jem to the new Lend Lease Jem Partners Fund will result in a profit on sale slightly ahead of plan for this year. The 25 per cent share that Lend Lease owns will be offloaded for $S227 million ($189m) to the fund comprising a small group of global investors. The remainder of the property is owned by Lend Lease's Asian Retail Investment Fund and Lend Lease will remain as the manager of the property, which it purchased as a development site in 2010. Lend Lease said there were some new investors in the fund. Last week The Australian flagged falls of about 20 per cent in Lend Lease's share price since May 15. There had been little explanation for the sell-off. Lend Lease has won more than $6bn worth of new projects in the last year, including the $1bn Waterbank redevelopment project in Perth, $2bn Sunshine Coast University Hospital in Queensland, the $2.5bn Sydney International Convention, Exhibition and Entertainment Precinct and most recently, the $630m Bendigo Hospital in Victoria. It is currently embarking on construction for two office towers worth $2bn at Barangaroo on Sydney's western CBD corridor. A spokeswoman said that job cuts were possible, adding that if they occurred, it would likely be in business support roles such as administration. All existing projects would continue to operate as normal, she said. Simon Thakray, an analyst at Nomura in Sydney, said the outlook comments amounted to profit downgrade. "Despite the 17 per cent fall in the share price over the past month, we expect the shares may continue to remain under pressure given the lower-quality earnings expectation and the weaker macroeconomic backdrop," Mr Thakray said before the market opened today.