"Shareholders will, I am sure, comprehend that these are single point in time measurements and that looking at returns over a longer timeframe provides a better assessment of performance," Waters said.
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Mark Adamson, chief executive, said the FBUinte cost reduction programme had delivered $25 million in benefits. But one of his biggest priorities was pursuing "organic growth across our businesses" and he said that had been achieved via market share growth, margin expansion, product innovation and geographic expansion.
The company had historically built and sold about 300 houses annually but a new approach had seen Fletcher broaden the types of houses it offered to the market to include apartments and terrace houses, as well as stand-alone dwellings, Adamson said.
"We are creating a pathway to an annual rate of one thousand homes sold each year. to meet this goal we need to increase our investment in land and we have successfully negotiated a number of land purchases in the past year. We are mindful of the need to generate strong returns from our residential business through the cycle and the property purchases we have carried out have been achieved at valuation which we believe are product and will allow the requisite returns to be generated," Adamson said.
Adamson also told shareholders how the company had a construction backlog of work of $1.8 billion at the end of last month, up from $1 billion a year earlier.
"Recent innovations in the market have included the advent of public-private partnerships and we have developed in-house capability to allow Fletchers to participate in these projects," Adamson said.
Waters also indicated disappointment with multi-billion dollar acquisitions, Formica and Crane.
"We made two acquisitions that didn't quite meet the economic case on which the acquisitions were made, first formica and then we had 2008 on our doorstep and the second one Crane - we have not really had the economic circumstances in Australia on which that acquisitions was predicated," Waters said.
