South African construction firm Group Five said on Wednesday it will sell a 50% stake in its steel pipe business for R80 million to LB Pipes Proprietary Ltd, as part of plans to exit non-core assets.

Reuters on Wednesday reported that Group Five made the announcement that it would sell its manufacturing arm and exit some construction businesses as part of a further restructuring to address a slump in its home market on 7 November 2017.

According to the news agency South Africa’s construction industry has slowed sharply since the 2010 FIFA World Cup, with few major infrastructure projects awarded and those that have been approved risk being curtailed by fiscal strains.

However, a deal to sell Group Five’s Investments and Concessions business to Greenbay Properties, for 1.6 billion rand ($112 million) collapsed in October.

Group Five said then that the business would be restructured into separate stand-alone clusters and that the board continued to assess various expressions of interest received for it.

–Reuters