Brickworks Sees Fiscal Year Earnings Rising Across Group, Creates New JV Trust

By Stuart Condie

SYDNEY--Australian building products and property group Brickworks Ltd. expects annual earnings from all three of its business units to rise and is creating a second property trust joint venture with Goodman Group Ltd.

Brickworks on Friday said that its existing industrial JV with Goodman is expected to drive record earnings from its property unit over the 12 months through July. It anticipates property earnings before interest and tax of more than 620 million Australian dollars (US$430.0 million), compared with A$253 million in its 2021 fiscal year.

It expects fiscal 2022 earnings from Australian building products business to rise by more than 20%, and earnings from North American building products to more than double.

Brickworks said that 15 manufacturing plants tenanted by its Australian building products will be transferred to a new manufacturing trust. It will own 51.1% of the trust and Goodman will own the remainder.

The Brickworks Manufacturing Trust assets will have a gross value of A$416 million, representing a A$280 million premium to their current book value, Brickworks said. Its Building Products Australia unit will record a net profit on the sale, with about A$90 million pre-tax to be recorded in 2H of FY22 and excluded from the earnings guidance issued Friday.

Brickworks said it expects net proceeds of A$193 million from the sale of the properties, which it will use to reduce debt.

Write to Stuart Condie at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 21, 2022 19:51 ET (23:51 GMT)

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