Adelaide Brighton posts 1% fall in net profit in 2018

Australian cement producer Adelaide Brighton posted a 1.4 per cent decline in net profit to AUD185.3m (US$131.5m) in 2018 as cement margins declined and slower growth in South Australia and Western Australia offset strong demand in New South Wales and Victoria.

“East coast construction markets were strong in 2018, South Australia and the Northern Territory were flat and Western Australia was down, while lime demand from the resources sector was stable,” Adelaide Brighton’s CEO, Nick Miller, said.

Adelaide Brighton said the fall in national quarterly construction work at the end of the year was an unusual combination of delays in infrastructure spending and a contraction in the residential building market. Construction work in Australia decreased by 3.1 per cent in the October-December 2018 quarter with the number of new homes being built down by 3.6 per cent, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.