(Reuters) – New Zealand’s Fletcher Building on Wednesday reported a 46% drop in its full-year net profit after tax, hurt by higher cost provisions for its international convention centre in Auckland.
The country’s largest construction materials maker set aside additional provisioning of NZ$255 million ($151.73 million) for its New Zealand International Convention Centre and Hobson Street Hotel (NZICC) project due to increasing project costs.
Its annual net profit after tax came in at NZ$235 million, compared with NZ$432 million a year earlier. Analysts on average estimated NZ$318.7 million, according to Refinitiv data.
“Looking forward to FY24, we expect some further tightening in our overall volumes and so our focus remains on strong customer performance, cost control and pricing disciplines across our businesses,” Chief Executive Ross Taylor said.
The company declared a final dividend of 16 New Zealand cents per share, lower than last year’s 22 cents apiece.
($1 = 1.6807 New Zealand dollars)
(Reporting by Poonam Behura and Sameer Manekar in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
