Alt-X listed civil engineering contractor Sanyati is receiving more work than it can handle.

Bruce Whitfield:
A company that is listed on AltX and it is one of the newer listings, just because it’s there doesn't make it tiny and insignificant, certainly it has seen its turnover up to R1-billion and the market though today wasn't all that inspired. The share price of Sanyati was down about five percent and to be fair, I suppose the valuations on AltX have been fairly severe recently, it is trading on a multiple of 17 which is pretty pricey but Sanyati is a civil engineering and construction company and Rick Jackson, the CEO joins us now and Rick, you look to be achieving that goal of broadening your reach outside KZN, you made a number of acquisitions; had those acquisitions deliberately been done to try and get you outside of your traditional stomping ground?

Rick Jackson:
Yes Bruce, that was our original objective was to spread right throughout South Africa that has been achieved, we now operate in all the provinces of South Africa and in fact, three countries outside of South Africa.

Bruce Whitfield:
And that is a remarkable achievement in a relatively short space of time. Is it organic growth for some of your businesses or is that all as a result of the acquisitions you have made?

Rick Jackson:
Well our organic core growth has been exceptional but obviously the three acquisitions that we did this year have contributed to that.

Bruce Whitfield:
The diversification though does seem to be favouring areas that are not necessarily favoured by your big competitors; you seem to be not that big in the Western Cape and Gauteng. Do you find that those markets perhaps are just a little bit too competitive, a bit too expensive, to break into aggressively?

Rick Jackson:
No not really. We are doing about 17 percent of our turnover in Gauteng at the moment with 45 percent being the biggest amount that we are doing in KZN so Gauteng I think we have effectively broken into. The Western Cape is you know a little bit further away and we have only done about 2 percent of our turnover.

Bruce Whitfield:
But plans for those regions? Have you got aggressive growth plans for Gauteng, for the Western Cape, one assumes that that is where the big money is?

Rick Jackson:
Yes we do have you know we have got quite big contracts going on in Bloemfontein at the moment, we are doing the Vodacom Bloemfontein Stadium as part of a joint-venture and we have quite a large contract as part of a joint-venture with Samroll in Gauteng to upgrade the freeway system around Johannesburg

Bruce Whitfield:
Are you finding you are needing to turn away business, have you got excess capacity?

Rick Jackson:
We definitely don't have excess capacity, we definitely are turning away work, and trying to select work with highest mark-ups.

Bruce Whitfield:
And the sort of operating margin that you have got at the moment?

Rick Jackson:
We are operating at around 15 percent but you know that depends on which avenue of the business you are talking about.

Bruce Whitfield:
But on average about 15 percent.

Rick Jackson:
Yes, about 15.

Bruce Whitfield:
And your biggest contracts at the moment, you have run through some of those as well and which are - and also I suppose the time sensitive ones are all the 2010 linked ones as well.

Rick Jackson:
Yes that is correct, like the stadium and the airport in Durban, the King Shaka International Airport, which we are part of, a joint-venture partner.

Bruce Whitfield:
Thank you very much Rick Jackson, who is the chief executive officer of Sanyati.