Investors gave the CSR result the big thumbs down yesterday, despite the company reporting a more than doubling in net profit to $70 million dollars for the year to March 31.
CSR shares fell close to 7% at one stage – one of the day’s biggest slides. They recovered a bit to end off 4.8% at the close, at $3.34. That was a drop of 17c.
The result was close to market forecasts of a $72 million net profit and slightly ahead of CSR’s own guidance for the upper end of the range from $51 million to $70 million.
The full year statutory net profit after tax attributable to shareholders was $88.1 million, compared with a restated net loss of $150 million in 2012-13.
The company earned a first half net profit of just over $36 million, which was up 92% from the previous year which was notable for a series of restructurings and big losses, especially in the Viridian glass business.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation jumped 29% to $202.5 million as the company experienced a year without significant restructuring and losses.
That enabled the company to ride the emerging home building boom higher.
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Managing director Rob Sindel said yesterday a number of restructuring initiatives over the past few years, including an overhaul of the loss-making Viridian glass business, contributed to the improved result.
"We have also made progress on our strategy to deliver faster and less complex building solutions for multi-residential projects with the recent acquisition of the AFS Group,” Mr Sindel said in yesterday’s statement.
"We are well positioned to take advantage of the construction market’s expected growth over the next few years.
"Building products earnings increased 20 per cent [to $92.6 million] with growth across most businesses while the turnaround of Viridian is on track, leading to a significant improvement in earnings," Mr Sindel said.
Group revenue rose 4% to $1.75 billion for the year ended March 31.
Glassmaker Viridian’s loss narrowed to $14.9 million from $38.8 million in 2013.
CSR owns 70% of Gove Aluminium Finance, which owns 36% of the Tomago aluminium smelter near Newcastle in NSW.
Near record-high premiums for physical aluminium boosted CSR’s aluminium division earnings by 3% to $51.9 million.
The company declared an unfranked final dividend of 5c a share payable on July 8.
That takes the payout for the full year to 10c a share, a payout ratio of 70%.
