Building materials group, Boral, aims to raise about $490 million to fund investments, reduce debt and pay for asset write-downs as it restructures the company under a new CEO.
The company revealed its planned changes yesterday and the issue which is being made at $4.10 each, a 16% discount to the closing price Monday of $4.89.
It revealed in the strategy review statement, released yesterday to the ASX.
Boral said it will also write-down $289 million of underperforming assets, which include four US brick plants.
In fact the company described the US write-downs as being on "older, high-cost facilities in the USA, including four obsolete brick plants".
That’s a hint the company doesn’t see future prospects in the US as being positive for a while.
Boral got 11% of its 2009 revenues from the struggling US economy and home building sector.
But Boral is also investing in the US, with plans to spend $US75 million buying the other 50% of its MonierLifetile joint venture it doesn’t own. (It said "agreed to acquire" the 50% stake.)
But around $43 million will be written off the US plants, according to Boral.
In Australia, the write-offs would include the Penrith Lakes quarry in Sydney, non-core assets and "slow moving inventory" which were not detailed.
Seeing Australia is the major area of past business and future growth, according to the review, the company said around $215 million of the $289 million in write-downs would come from the local arm and its various bits.
There was also a $14 million charge for the re-organisation of the company’s corporate structure and reporting lines.
That will help pay for between 150 and 200 job losses.
Boral will cut the number of divisions from seven to five and focus on improving working capital and lowering inventories.
The company also said that its full-year earnings forecast for the June 30 year was a touch higher amid difficult market conditions, with net profit for the year to June seen as falling between $123.5 million and $132 million, not including the write-downs. According to the statement, the market had been expecting profit of $123.5 million.
The moves came as a result of a six-month review, chief executive Mark Selway said, which identified cement and construction materials in Australia, plasterboard in Australia and Asia, and bricks, roof tiles and masonry in Australia and the US as the key markets for the company.
Australia is now the very obvious focus, with around $280 million earmarked for expansion here.
Mr Selway said the proposed investment of circa $280 million into key Australian assets "will enhance Boral’s market positions in NSW and Victoria. The capital raising would also strengthen Boral’s balance sheet."
"The initiatives we have announced today are fundamental steps in our strategy to improve the performance of the group – and to free up capital in readiness for long-term market growth," Mr Selway said.
Boral said it would raise the capital through an underwritten 1 for 5 share offer at $4.10 per share.
Shares in Boral were placed in trading halt prior to the announcement yesterday.
Boral shares are down 22% so far in 2010, compared with a 13.2% fall in the ASX 200 index.
Trading in the shares remained suspended at $4.89 yesterday while the issue was being marketed to institutions.
Small shareholders will then be offered shares.
