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Nicholas Grove is a Morningstar journalist.

Boral (BLD) has appointed the president of its US operations, Mike Kane, as the company's new chief executive, effective 1 October 2012.

Kane will replace Ross Batstone, who became Boral's CEO in May 2012 when Mark Selway stood down from the role, the building products maker said.

Kane has spent the past two and half years "realigning the US business to the changed market conditions," Boral said.

In a statement, Boral chairman Bob Every said the board had considered a number of external and internal candidates for the role and was delighted to announce the appointment of an internal candidate.

"Mike has a deep understanding of the international building and construction materials industry," Every said.

"He has been doing an excellent job leading the US business through the most difficult period in the last 60 years of the US housing market.

"He has delivered substantial improvements to the underlying business in the US at the same time as introducing innovative new technologies and integrating two key strategic acquisitions that position the business well for the future."

Batstone will remain with the group in a consulting capacity until his retirement in July 2013, the company said.

Commenting on his appointment, Kane said he believes Boral is "very well-positioned for the next upswing in activity".

"My medium-term focus is to ensure that the company has in place the necessary strategies to maximise returns through the construction and building cycles," he said.

"I'll be working with my team over the next six months to define a clear path forward to achieve both our immediate and longer-term objectives."

In late August, Boral announced a bottom-of-guidance profit of $101 million for fiscal 2012, a year that Morningstar head of equities research Peter Warnes described as Boral's "annus horribilis".

"The report card is awful but hopefully better times are ahead," he said in a note.

While challenging conditions are set to continue for Boral in fiscal 2013, Warnes said he sees further improvement in fiscal 2014 as housing activity in both Australia and the US continues to recover.