CSR Limited shareholders todayoverwhelmingly approved the demerger of Rinker Group Limited (“Rinker”) fromCSR.

Around 15,000 shareholders voted on the demergerresolutions, including around 300 shareholders attending meetings inSydney. Over 99% of total votes castwere in favour of both the demerger resolution and the necessary reduction ofcapital.

The demerger of Rinker has now moved a step closer.The final step will be to seek the approvalof the Federal Court of Australia on Friday, March 28.

Rinker Group, post-demerger, is expected to be one of theworld’s top 10 heavy building materials groups, with annual sales around A$5.8billion and around 13,000 employees.Itwill be an Australian company, headquartered in Sydney and listed on theAustralian Stock Exchange (ASX), where it is expected to be one of the Top 50stocks. Pro-forma compound average annual growth in sales has been around 12.3%over the past three years, whilst compound growth in earnings before interest,tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) has averaged 18.7% over the sameperiod.

CSR will become a diversified industrial company, with astrong portfolio of businesses in Building Products, Sugar and Aluminium, andsales revenue around A$2 billion.Headquartered in Sydney, CSR is Australia’s second oldest public companyand will continue to be listed on the ASX, where it is expected to be withinthe top 100 companies. The combinedCSR businesses have a history of stable earnings, generating returns well abovetheir cost of capital.CSR is expectedto appeal to investors who prefer companies paying a higher proportion ofprofits as dividends.A payout ratio ofaround 60 –70% of earnings after tax is generally expected.