Australia: Boral has seen a 40% decrease in its profit during the first half of its fiscal year a period that ended on 31 December 2019. Its profit fell to US$90.4m for the period from US$151m a year earlier. Boral said that this was due to higher costs and weak housing activity in Australia and South Korea. It was also affected by the costs of transactions between its USG-Boral joint-venture partner USG and Knauf, which bought USG in 2019, along with its interest in USG-Boral.