Australia: James Hardie Industries, an Australian fibre cement producer, has posted an 80% fall in its net profit to US$28.9m during the first quarter of its 2015 fiscal year, which ended on 30 June 2014. During the same period of its 2014 fiscal year, net profit was US$142m.
The company revised down its full year earnings expectations due to an uncertain US economic recovery. James Hardie generates 66% of its revenue in Europe and the USA. James Hardie's CEO, Louis Gries, said that the US market 'is recovering more modestly than we assumed at the start of the year.'