French firm Saint-Gobain keen on Knauf’s Australian plasterboard assets

The Knauf plasterboard facility at the Port of Bundaberg. Picture: Mike Knott

French building materials company Saint-Gobain is understood to be circling Knauf’s Australian plasterboard assets and has been tipped as a potential buyer of Boral’s $3.5bn operations in the US.

This column reported last week that a European group was understood to be interested in the $400m Knauf portfolio that is soon to be placed up for sale in an official process run by Bank of America.

Another company that is also understood to be interested in buying the Knauf plasterboard operations is China National Building Material, or CNBM.

The publicly traded company is involved in cement, lightweight building materials, glass fibre, fibre-reinforced plastic products and engineering services.

Saint-Gobain operates in 67 countries and produces a variety of construction, high-performance and other materials with annual revenue of about €10.9bn ($18bn).

Its construction products division consists of Gypsum, which manufactures drywall, also known as plasterboard, Insulation, which manufactures thermal fibreglass and insulation, Exterior Products, which manufactures roofing and interior and exterior products, and Pipes and Mortars.

Brands include Saint-Gobain Glass, Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, Weber, British Gypsum, Glassolutions, Gyproc, Artex, Isover, CTD, Jewson, Ecophon, Pasquill and PAM.

The publicly traded company has embarked on several acquisitions in the past, including Britain’s BPB in 2005, which was the world’s largest plasterboard manufacturer, for $US6.7bn.

It already operates in Australia and has a strong presence in emerging markets such as India and the Middle East. In the US, it operates across the spectrum in building materials, making it a logical buyer of at least parts of the Headwaters business that Boral purchased for $3.5bn.

Boral, led by the recently appointed Zlatko Todorcevski, is expected to announce the results of a strategic review of its overall operations carried out by Macquarie Capital and Flagstaff at the end of the month, with most anticipating its US operations will be sold off. Investors have expressed disappointment at its performance since the 2016 acquisition.

In the US, Boral operates in fly ash, stone and roofing, light building products, windows and concrete blocks.

Knauf, a multinational, family-owned company based in Germany, is being forced to sell the Australian plasterboard assets it owned before it bought more assets from USG deal to appease the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission.