He said the divestment program had “unlocked substantial value” for Boral shareholders. Boral undertook a competitive sales process for the fly ash business. The transaction is scheduled to settle later this financial year.
$3b capital return
Eco Market Technologies director Grant Quasha said his company was “dedicated to decarbonising the materials industry through scalable and proven technological solutions”.
Boral already secured approval at its October 28 annual meeting to return as much as $3 billion in capital to shareholders ahead of the final stages of the asset sale program.
Four months ago, it completed the sale of its larger US building products business, comprising roofing, stone and windows operations, to Westlake Chemical for $US2.15 billion ($3.1 billion).
Boral still has about 50,000 shareholders on its register. There were about 80,000 shareholders before the takeover offer from Seven Group. The Stokes family was highly influential in pushing for an exit from the US by Boral, and concentrating on the Australian business.
Seven Group, which operates the mining-focused heavy machinery business WesTrac, equipment hire company Coates Hire and has a 30 per cent stake in Beach Energy, started building a holding in Boral under the radar last year. It made a takeover bid on May 10 and eventually reached a stake of 69.6 per cent.
New, independent directors
Boral chairman Ryan Stokes outlined at the annual meeting that Seven Group was not happy with the performance of the company’s Australian operations. He said the return on investment from that business had been “unacceptably low”.
The sale price for the US fly ash business was $US755 million, but may go slightly higher because of earn-out agreements connected with the completion and performance of the Kirkland natural pozzolan mining project in Arizona.
On December 1, Mr Stokes, who is chairing Boral without accepting any director fees, added two new directors to the board as the company carries out its overhaul. Boral appointed Mark Johnson and Jacqueline Chow as independent directors.
Until mid-November, Mr Johnson was chairman of Australia’s largest ASX-listed childcare operator, G8 Education, and he is a former CEO of consulting firm PwC Australia. He is chairman of private health fund HCF and a director of industrial property and warehousing company Goodman Group. He starts as a Boral director straight away.
Ms Chow begins her stint on March 1 next year. She is a director of supermarket giant Coles Group, property group Charter Hall and health fund nib Holdings. She is a former chief operating officer of the Auckland-based dairy group Fonterra.
