Johannesburg - South Africa’s biggest cement maker, PPC Ltd, reported a 38-percent decline in half-year profit on Tuesday, hurt by slack demand at its mainstay home market.
PPC said diluted headline earnings per share (EPS) totalled 59 cents in the six months to end-March compared with 95 cents a year earlier.
Headline EPS, which strips out certain one-off items, is the main profit measure in South Africa.
Revenue rose 9 percent to 4.5 billion rand ($378.78 million).
South African building firms are struggling with weak demand as the government delays rolling out its nearly 1 trillion rand infrastructure investment package.
In response, PPC has set its sights on the rest of Africa. PPC is building plants in African countries, including Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as part of a wider plan to generate 40 percent of its sales outside its home market by 2017.
Reuters