Wagners CEO confident despite huge FY profit drop

TOOWOOMBA company Wagners has forecasted a positive next 12 months, despite reporting a large drop in profits to shareholders.

Screenshots from Wagners' Earth Friendly Concrete promo video.

TOOWOOMBA company Wagners has forecast a positive next 12 months, despite reporting a large drop in profits to shareholders.

The construction materials business's 2020 financial year report, released this week, revealed it recorded an after-tax pro forma profit of $3.92 million, way down from the $13.7 million result the year prior.

Wagners statutory result, which factors in a new accounting standard that treats a company's rental payments differently, was actually a $17,000 loss.

Company CEO Cameron Coleman said the ongoing cement pricing dispute with competitor Boral, which has been resolved from a business perspective, and the loss of major infrastructure projects hurt the company badly over the past 12 months.

"The key message that I'm trying to communicate to investors is (the result was because of) reduced cement sales due to the dispute with Boral, as well lack of major infrastructure work, leading us to shut down our precast business.

"It was a tough year, but we've got Boral back to normal supply levels, and we've got contracts secured so we expect continued growth."

Mr Coleman said investors could expect business growth over the coming year, after the company secured multimillion-dollar contracts on the Cross River Rail and the Carmichael Mine.

"We've got $40 million of work in hand for our casting business through the CRR," he said.

"The other key thing is our contract crushing services saw little revenue last year, but we already have the $30 million contract at the Carmichael Mine.

"We look forward to the increase in infrastructure activities with the government bringing forward shovel-ready projects to help us recover from COVID-19."

Mr Coleman said the company's American endeavours had been stifled by the international travel ban, which left key equipment gathering dust in storage in Texas.

But he said Wagners would continue to gain work in the Middle East, thanks to a sales team based there.

"We've got a pultrusion machine sitting in Texas after it arrived in February, and to date we can't install it," Mr Coleman said.

"We look forward to things stabilising, where we can get manufacturing operations back in the US.

"The key point there is that we're still committed to international growth in new building materials and composite fibre technology.

"We now have a dedicated business manager in the Middle East and another shipment heads across there in the coming days."