Effective March 23, engineering company Murray & Roberts’ (M&R's) classification on the JSE will move from Diversified Industrials to the Engineering and Contracting Services subsector – a new subsector to be introduced by FTSE Russell and the enhanced Industry Classification Benchmark.

Group CE Henry Laas says the implementation of the group’s new strategic future strategy over the last five years has had the “desired effect” of developing and diversifying the group’s three business platforms.

The strategy has included the successful disposal of noncore assets to focus the group on the natural resources market sectors, which offer greater long-term fundamentals, he adds. “The group’s new subsector will be more descriptive of our strategic positioning.”

The group also broadened its market focus to mitigate market cyclicality, which is typical of natural resources markets. In addition to natural resources, the industrial, energy, water and specialised infrastructure sectors all form part of M&R's target market.

“This broader market focus includes sectors that present opportunity for growth, diversification and differentiation for each of the business platforms,” says Laas.

Accordingly, towards the end of the 2020 calendar year, M&R's business platforms were renamed to better describe the market sectors in which they are positioned to operate as specialist contractors.

The Oil & Gas platform was renamed the Energy, Resources & Infrastructure platform; the Power & Water platform was renamed the Power, Industrial & Water platform; and the Underground Mining platform was renamed the Mining platform.

In M&R's interim financial results, released to the market on March 3, the group reported a record order book of R60.5-billion. The group was said to be well positioned for a return to profitability in the 2022 financial year and to achieve meaningful earnings growth in the short to medium term.