WELLINGTON, Aug 19 (Reuters) - New Zealand Fletcher Building FBU.NZ reported a slide in annual profit on Wednesday as falling revenues at the constructions materials maker's Australian operations offset gains seen at home.
Net profit for the year to June 30 dropped 20 percent to NZ$270 million ($177.96 million) from NZ$339 million a year earlier. Some analysts had forecast a rise to around NZ$390 million.
Operating earnings excluding significant items rose 5 percent to NZ$653 million, at the low end of company guidance of NZ$650 million to NZ$690 million.
Shares in Fletcher, New Zealand's largest company by market share, traded 0.26 percent higher at NZ$7.65, showing little initial reaction to the results.
Fletcher said that a slowdown in the mining sector of Australia, where it earns 35 percent of total revenues, had weighed on overall earnings.
Operating earnings before interest and tax in Australia fell 30.4 percent in the past year, taking some of the glow off a 24 percent rise in earnings in New Zealand.
"The New Zealand construction market was strong across the residential, commercial and infrastructure sectors, and we experienced strong volume growth in most of our businesses," Mark Adamson, Fletcher Building's chief executive officer, said in a statement.
"Conditions in Australia were much more mixed, with a buoyant residential construction market, but weak conditions in the mining, resources and infrastructure sectors."
Fletcher added that it expected earnings would continue to benefit from an ongoing housing boom in New Zealand, but it warned that construction activity in the mining and resources sectors in Australia would likely trend lower in response to weaker global commodity prices.
Fletcher Building is the lead contractor in the earthquake rebuild programmed for Christchurch, and makes a broad range of building products from steel roof tiles to timber products, which it exports to Asia, Europe and the Americas. ($1 = 1.5172 New Zealand dollars)