CSR's growth 'organic' rather than strategic: chief exec

21/05/2012 - Building products supplier CSR Ltd expects growth to come from its existing businesses rather than through acquisitions.

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CSR chief executive Rob Sindel says there are huge growth opportunities around new product development, innovation, new building systems, energy efficiency and speed of construction.

"It's organic growth. You don't want to talk about strategic growth at this stage," Sindel told the ABC's Inside Business program.

"It's basically about light-weight construction, and how do we position ourselves for a multi-residential future in Australia."

Sindel said CSR had plenty of opportunities to make acquisitions or to add to its factory network in Australia or overseas.

But CSR expected the next 12 months to be challenging.

"We're going to hang on to our cash and be quite prudent about our investments," he said.

Sindel acknowledged that CSR's glass-making business was struggling but he said CSR had a lot of faith in the ability of glass to be a building product that everyone wants and uses.

CSR last week posted a $76.3 million profit for the year to March 31, 2012, down 85 per cent from $503.4 million the prior year.

However, the previous year's result included earnings from CSR's sugar business and benefited from the $1.84 billion sale of the sugar business in December 2010.

Excluding the impacts of the sale, CSR's profit was an improvement from a $78 million loss in the prior corresponding period.

Source: AAP

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