On Tuesday, Formica, Fletcher Building's laminates business, announced it was expanding in China and would build a new factory of about 5ha as part of its $200 million push into Asia.
Yesterday, Iplex Pipelines, recently acquired as part of the purchase of the Crane Group, was awarded a $A180 million ($NZ226 million) contract for the supply of polyethylene pipe to QGC Pty for its Queensland Curtis Island LNG project.
The company also announced it was bringing its Laminex and Formica businesses together, to create a laminate and panels division with a single global leadership structure.
Mr McIntyre said it made sense to bring the Laminex and Formica businesses together, remembering that the Formica purchase was problematic for Fletcher Building.
There was concern at the time that Fletcher Building had paid too much for Formica. But it had become clear it was pushing hard to gain more of the Asian market, he said.
The coal seam gas industry in Australia was huge and Fletcher had made no secret it wanted to be part of the industry when it bought Crane.
"It has captured part of that straight away," Mr McIntyre said.
Formica president and chief executive Mark Adamson said a new laminates plant would be built in Jiujiang, a city of about 4.8 million people in the Jiangxi province.
The plant would be one of the largest in the Formica group and double the company's capacity in China.
Formica has been in China for more than 20 years, and about four or five years ago it undertook the construction and commissioning of a new plant in Qing Pu, on the outskirts of Shanghai.
Fletcher chief executive Jonathan Ling this year announced a $200 million expansion plan for Formica Asia, pushing further into China and Malaysia. Mr Adamson said China offered huge opportunities.
"The commercial construction boom, coupled with the massive construction of government-subsidised housing projects, has accelerated the demand for laminate. The Chinese market - already twice the size of the United States market - continues to grow by 15% a year," he said.
The Jiujiang plant would be finished by 2013 and would manufacture high-pressure laminate to support the demand in China and other select Asian markets.
The 50,000sq m factory, equivalent to 5ha of indoor floor space, was planned to allow for future growth and would employ about 400 people.
Mr Ling indicated this year he expected big results from Formica because its products are used in China's rapidly expanding commercial sectors for fast food, hospital and hotel expansion. But increasingly, Formica was being used in residential situations, as well.
Although competition in China was intense, Formica's global brand strength and position as a premium product manufacturer had seen it grow its presence in the market, especially as many local businesses valued the service, design and quality of well-recognised Western brands such as Formica.
"Unlike many international businesses that have established operations in China, virtually all of the Formica high-pressure laminate manufactured in China is sold within China itself," Mr Ling said.
Philip King, Fletcher investor relations manager, said demand for Formica high-pressure laminate meant the plant at Qing Pu was nearing capacity.
Iplex Pipelines would build a new manufacturing facility in Toowoomba and that facility was expected to be operational by mid-2012, executive general manager Robert McLeod said.
"The new Toowoomba factory will also enable Iplex to improve its overall delivery capability. We are confident that this addition to Iplex's existing manufacturing capacity through Australasia ideally positions us to benefit from the growing coal seam gas market in Australia and, in particular, southeast Queensland," he said.
Shares in Fletcher Building, New Zealand's largest listed company, fell nearly 1% yesterday after going ex-dividend.
