Toowoomba company Wagners reveals $4.7m after-tax half-year profit result, opens new USA manufacturing plant

One of Toowoomba’s biggest companies has announced the opening of its new manufacturing plant in the United States, along with a health half-yearly profit result.

Wagners CEO Cameron Coleman with one of the company's composite fibre technology bridges in Canada.

Toowoomba company Wagners’ expansion into the United States has kicked into gear, with its new Texas manufacturing facility now staffed and creating products.

The major construction materials business posted a healthy half-yearly profit result of $4.7m after tax, a significant improvement from the same report 12 months ago.

Company CEO Cameron Coleman said Wagners was hoping to see its composite fibre technology business expand over the next year, driven by its new US plant.

“We’ll see our USA division make a contribution in the second half of the year — we’ve got about 25 staff based in Cresson, Texas,” he said.

“The facility is built and we expect revenue in the second half from the recently constructed manufacturing facility — CFT sales on the prior corresponding period grew 30 per cent in Australia and New Zealand.”

Mr Coleman said the company’s half-yearly result was due to strong sales for construction materials in southeast Queensland and bulk haulage demand in the resources sector, along with picking up a number of extra projects.

“We’re very happy with the first-half year performance — it’s been driven by strong activity in the SEQ construction materials business coupled with growth in our bulk haulage, like mining services in northern Queensland and into the Northern Territory,” he said.

“We recently picked up a $33m project at McArthur up in the Northern Territory.

“We have started work on the Dulacca wind farm out near Roma, and we’re supplying concrete to that project for the foundations so that’s 30,000 cubic metres of concrete.

“Our current focus is on the deployment of our earth-friendly concrete throughout Europe and the growth of sales of our CFT in the United States.”

Mr Coleman said the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by Russia could lead to supply chain disruptions, but noted it was impossible to predict at this point.

“The cost of shipping has increased (in general) and we are offsetting that cost to customers, coupled with even more demand, which gives us economy of scale options,” he said.

“While we don’t see any immediate pressure on our supply chains, we’re watching (the crisis) closely in anticipation of it applying pressure on us.”

The company did not offer a dividend to investors.