Sale of Stevenson building products division cancelled

Stevenson Group has ditched plans to sell its building products division after long-running discussions with suitors that included Fletcher Building.

Managing director John Rae said Stevenson's shareholders had decided not to go ahead with the sale.

Last year, the Commerce Commission declined Fletcher's application to buy its rival, saying the acquisition might substantially lessen competition in the national cement market.

Fletcher wanted to buy Stevenson's building products division, which has assets in ready mixed concrete, concrete masonry, terrazzo flooring material, precast concrete products and building retail.

The purchase would have increased Fletcher's exposure to markets in Auckland.

A Stevenson's spokeswoman said this month negotiations were continuing for the sale of the business to another party but Rae has now put an end to that speculation.

He told staff Stevenson had been negotiating with a party that was "a great cultural fit for the business" but the sale had now been cancelled.

"This was not the outcome many of you will be expecting," he said, and that it was certainly not what he thought would happen.

But in negotiating to sell the business, staff had come to understand operations better and there was room to improve the division's profitability.

Robert Hay, who has become chief executive of the building products division, is working on a plan to develop the business.