Second half-year down for Fleetwood

Mobile accommodation provider Fleetwood Corporation has announced its second half year profits will be below expectations.

In a statement the company blamed “weaker trading conditions” for the fall in profitability and said second half earnings will be marginally below its first half earnings of $140 million.

The company attributed the poor performance of its accommodation and service worker sites to the slow-down in the mining sector.

In February the company said it was confident of posting improved results for the second half-year after a poor first half performance.

Fleetwood said the softening resources sector had resulted in oversupply at its Searipple village accommodation site in Karratha and negatively affected the sites earnings.

The Osprey service workers village in South Hedland is now 40 per cent complete and expected to post an operating income towards the end of the 2013 calendar year.

The viability of the Gladstone village project is being reviewed by the company in light of a weakening outlook.

The company said weak trading conditions for recreational vehicles and the impact of the cost of relocation of its Windsor manufacturing activity to Western Australia had  continued to affect earnings in that division.