Sayers reverses retirement plans

Ausdrill managing director Ron Sayers says he no longer plans to step down from the role next year, despite the prospect he could face a retrial on tax fraud charges.

A Supreme Court jury was earlier this month unable to reach a verdict on charges against Mr Sayers and Barminco founder Peter Barlett after a 12-week trial.

Ausdrill told the market later that day that Mr Sayers would immediately resume all duties as managing director, having remained at a distance from the company's day-to-day operations during the trial.

Speaking at Ausdrill's annual general meeting in Perth today, Mr Sayers said a collapse in the company's share price had prompted him to reconsider plans to step down as managing director at the end of this financial year.

"In quite simple terms, my cost base for the shares that I own is $1.55 (per share)," Mr Sayers told reporters after the meeting.

"At 85 cents (per share), I'm not going anywhere."

Mr Sayers said he had offered to stand down as managing director when his case was first brought to trial but had been asked to continue by the board.

He said he did not expect the case would return to court, suggesting a retrial was likely to result in a similar deadlock.

"Nothing has changed, nothing will change; the same witnesses will be there and the same story will be there," he said.

"No one could reach agreement last time around so why would they want to go around again?"

Earlier, Ausdrill chairman Terry O'Connor reaffirmed the company's support for Mr Sayers and for deputy chairman Wal King, who has recently faced allegations that he was aware or involved in bribery and corruption during his time as chief executive at Leighton Holdings.

Mr King has signalled that he intends to pursue legal action against Fairfax Media over the allegations.

Around 21 per cent of the votes cast in a motion to re-elect Mr King to the Ausdrill board opposed the motion.

The Australian Shareholders Asssociation earlier this month outlined its intentions to oppose Mr King's re-election, as well as the company's remuneration report.

Shareholders voted largely in favour of the remuneration report, with around 13 per cent of votes cast opposing the motion.

More than $123 million was wiped from the market value of mining services firm Ausdrill in a single day earlier this month after the company forecast a more than 50 per cent fall in its annual earnings.

Ausdrill said it now expects to report a net profit after tax of between $35 million and $45 million for the financial year to June 30 2014, due to weaker-than-expected first quarter results and soft prevailing market conditions.

Mr O'Connor said the market for Ausdrill's services had deteriorated beyond what it had anticipated at the beginning of the year, with exploration activity subdued and miners reducing spending.

"In a sense, Ausdrill has been hit by the perfect storm – a downturn in demand for our services, a focus by mine owners on cutting costs and deferring non-essential expenditure, including capital works, exploration programs and non-critical maintenance and finally, in the case of Ausdrill, the completion of four significant contracts, three in Africa and one in Australia," Mr O'Connor said.

"In other cases, mine owners have reduced the volume of waste removal with a consequent impact on our contract mining and drill and blast operations.

"We hope in the next calendar year that the major mining houses will increase their exploration activities, although margins will continue to be under pressure." 

Mr O'Connor said the company had reduced its headcount by more than 1,000 to 5,043 as it worked to cut costs.

Mr Sayers said Ausdrill would look to diversify its revenue base, which at the moment has around 60 per cent of revenue coming from the struggling gold sector.

"We've had three major projects come off in Africa and we need to replace those contracts," Mr Sayers said.

"We do have about 300 pieces of major mining equipment parked up around the world and we need to put that back to work: that's what we're concentrating on at the moment.

"We are negotiating contracts at the moment that we believe we will win a part of, probably in the next month, and that will put a fair amount of our gear back to work."

While Mr Sayers is synonymous with Ausdrill, this is not the first time he has made plans to step down from the company only to change his mind.

He retired as managing director in 1997, only to return three years later when the company got into financial strife after making an ill-fated foray into Latin America.