S.A. firm to pull out of Australia

Press, 5 December 1985, Page 6

S.A. firm to pull out of Australia

NZPA Reuter Johannesburg A big South African construction firm says it will withdraw from Australia as soon as possible because of political pressure and official decisions to ban the granting of contracts to South African companies. LTA, Ltd, is ultimately controlled by the giant multi-national Anglo-Ameri-can Corporation, according to an independent South African share analyst, Robin McGregor, in his publication, ,s Who Owns Whom.”

LTA, in an interim earnings report, said that the Australian Government had decided to forbid the award of Federal construction contracts to South African-con-trolled companies. “Two important contracts which were about to be

awarded to us were deferred and put to tender again and we were unable to bid,” LTA said. “The loss of this work and the consequences of other politically motivated action, including adoption of similar anti-South African restrictions by two of the state Governments, have severely affected our Australian operations to the point where, we have no option but to withdraw from that country as soon as existing responsibilities to complete work have been discharged.” , The company’s returns for the half-year ended September 30 made provision for a loss of five million rand which it said was largely the result of problems in Australia. '