Boral CEO to quit after staff inflated earnings

BORAL boss Mike Kane has announced he is standing down after the company confirmed staff at its North American windows business had inflated earnings figures over a 20month period.

Shares in the under-fire construction materials manufacturer fell by as much as 12.2 per cent at the open yesterday after an investigation found employees overstated pre-tax earnings by $US24.4 million ($A36.6 million) at the windows division between March 2018 and October 2019.

In a flurry of announcements to the ASX, the company also said second-half earnings across its three major units would take a hit from bushfire-related disruptions, while Mr Kane would retire after the company reported its full-year results in August. Mr Kane has led the company for seven years, though the latter period of his tenure has been dogged by a series of profit downgrades, a plummeting share price and last year’s revelations of the financial irregularities in windows. Boral said it had begun an international search for his successor.

“While the business has faced considerable challenges including lower than- expected growth in North America, it is important to acknowledge that since (Mr Kane’s) appointment as CEO in 2012, (he) has set

Boral on a path to deliver substantially improved performance for the long term,” chairman Kathryn Fagg said in a statement.

Mr Kane apologised to shareholders yesterday for the accounting manipulation and vowed Boral would improve reporting and governance mechanisms.