Lendlease Europe boss to exit after four-year stint

Lendlease has revealed its Europe chief executive Neil Martin will step down in October after four years in the top job. 

The news comes just two weeks after the division reported a £230m annual pre-tax loss. 

In an announcement on its website, Lendlease said Martin had “decided to retire”, adding that the group’s search for a replacement will “begin soon”.

The Australia-headquartered company did not disclose what Martin’s plans are after he leaves and a spokesperson did not respond when asked by Construction News. 

Martin’s exit come after more than 20 years with the global contractor. His construction career began at Bovis in 1990 as a site engineer before leaving to complete law qualifications. He later joined Kier as a construction lawyer then returned in 1999 as Bovis was acquired by Lendlease.

His time at Lendlease included a five-year stint working at the firm’s headquarters in Sydney, before he was appointed Europe boss in 2019. 

Lendlease global chief executive Tony Lombardo, who was appointed in 2021, said: “Neil has done an exceptional job in building a strong leadership team, and we’ll be announcing his successor in due course.”

Martin said: “I would like to thank all of the incredibly talented and hard-working colleagues who’ve supported me throughout my career and I’m extremely proud of what we’ve achieved together.”

Lendlease Europe’s £230m annual loss for the year to 30 June 2022, announced this month, included £114m set aside for remediation work in the wake of the post-Grenfell building-safety crisis. However, the company said much of this was inherited from its acquisition of Crosby Homes in 2005 and it no longer owned the 56 affected buildings. 

The Europe division’s loss was largely blamed on the Lendlease global group reporting an AU$141m loss for the first half. 

Lendlease was one of 11 developers to initially miss the deadline to sign the government’s remediation contract agreeing to fix high-rises it has worked on in the past 30 years. It signed up just over a week later.