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Boral chief executive Mike Kane will join the growing ranks of bosses from large Australian-listed companies spending a large chunk of their time based offshore, as the building products giant prepares to stitch the $US2.6 billion ($3.5 billion) Headwaters business into its own operations.
Mr Kane will spend about half of his time in the United States in the "early years" of the integration of Headwaters now that United States competition regulators have given the all-clear to the acquisition, allowing the US maker of fly ash and building products to officially become part of Boral.
It is a similar model to that being used by Treasury Wine Estates chief executive Mike Clarke, who is basing himself in California for a large part of the year while the Penfolds owner tries to supercharge the performance of a large United States wine business which it acquired in late 2015 for $754 million.
Mr Clarke described his arrangements as a "co-location" when it was revealed in February that he would set up shop in the Napa Valley to try and accelerate the momentum in the US brands acquired from Diageo. He also said he would still be spending a substantial amount of time in the Treasury Wine head office in Melbourne.
Mr Kane, who was born and bred in the United States, has been the chief executive of Boral since 2012 and the Headwaters acquisition announced in November, 2016 was a huge bet by the Australian company, which helped pay for it with a $2.1 billion equity raising.
It was the biggest united States acquisition by an Australian company in five years. It came just as Donald Trump was elected as US president and promised a major increase in spending on US infrastructure. Fly ash is a cement substitute used in the construction of bridges and highways, and in the foundations and driveways for new residential and commercial buildings.
Another big Australian blue-chip firm, logistics and pallets company Brambles also has a chief executive who will no longer be permanently based in Australia. Graham Chipchase, who took over from long-serving chief executive Tom Gorman in February, 2017, is from the United Kingdom and has spurned the Sydney headquarters. Brambles intends to officially open a Brambles corporate office in London in the second half of calendar 2017 but chairman Stephen Johns will remain based in the Sydney Brambles office and the firm will keep its ASX listing.
Boral said on Friday it had set up a specialist integration team in the United States as it prepares to extract between $US30 million to $US35 million of synergies in the first year of ownership. Headwaters will be integrated into the existing Boral USA division which will be re-badged as Boral North America.
Mr Kane said on Friday the combined business would have "greater geographic reach, more diverse product offerings and strong growth prospects". Boral has hired specialist merger and acquisitions firm Pritchett to help with the integration process, which is being led by David Mariner, Boral North Americas chief executive.