Australia's CSR shares eye best day in a year as core unit outshines HY show

CSR

02/11/2023 24:41

By Roushni Nair
       Nov 2 (Reuters) - Shares of CSR  CSR.AX  rose more than
6% on Thursday, heading for their best session in nearly a year,
after the Australian building products maker's core segment
logged record half-yearly earnings on the back of volume growth
and factory efficiency.
    The Building Products unit, which drives most of CSR's
profitability, clocked earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT)
of A$164.7 million ($105.69 million) for the six months to Sept.
30, an 18% surge from a year earlier.
    CSR shares rose as much as 6.4% to A$5.980 by 1146 GMT,
posting their biggest intraday percentage gain since November
2022. The stock also touched its highest level since Sept. 8.
    "However, given continued constraints in the building
sector, CSR currently sees demand for its products more closely
aligned to work done and completions activity," the company said
in a statement. 
    The company reported a statutory net profit after tax of
A$91.5 million for the first half, compared with A$104 million a
year earlier.
    "At headline level, this looks like a clear miss," Sam
Brandwood, an industrials analyst at Bell Potter, said in a
note.
    "However when putting into context segment performance i.e.
a significant 18% Building Products beat offset by a deferral of
property sales to 2H24 and continued issues in the non-core
Aluminium segment... the result overall is a strong one."  
    CSR highlighted investments in manufacturing performance,
plant consolidation, and supply chain have improved into fiscal
2024 alongside easing costs. 

($1 = 1.5584 Australian dollars)

 (Reporting by Roushni Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu
Sahu)
 ((Roushni.Nair@thomsonreuters.com;))