Adelaide Brighton eyes additional assets

Australia's surging property market and healthy infrastructure projections is encouraging Adelaide Brighton to look out for further acquisitions. "From a demand point of view on the east coast, it’s hard to be pessimistic. The only way to put it is it’s very strong," Adelaide Brighton chief executive, Martin Brydon, told The Australian.

The Melbourne residential market has also shown strong if unexpected demand. "It’s actually stronger than what we thought it would be even six months ago," he said. Although Melbourne is still heavily skewed towards residential in terms of concrete demand, Mr Brydon said upcoming infrastructure projects would more than offset any slack from a decline in building approvals.

"New South Wales is more balanced," he said. "There’s strong demand from residential but ther's also a lot of infrastructure work that’s been under way now for the past couple of years, and that’s just cranking up." But energy costs remain a sore point for the company, with an AUD8m hit projected for the full year if electricity prices remain at current levels.

"We've been lobbying everyone," Mr Brydon said. "It’s very unusual for business to be encouraging government intervention. It's not normal and we don’t like doing it but I make no apology for it. In this instance there was no option." The company has spent AUD85.5m on bolt-on acquisitions in the year to date, and is "on the lookout" for more businesses that complement its existing network.

In addition, Mr Brydon said the company was also likely to increase cement prices for a second time later this year but did not disclose the amount of the price rise.