CRH Group sales soar  up to a record €13.2 billion

CRH Group sales soar up to a record €13.2 billion

By Maurice Garvey

CRH, the global building materials group, has reported record earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation of €1.54 billion in the six months to June 30.

This represents a jump of 36 per cent, year on year.

CRH 1

Driven by growth and acquisitions

Headquartered at Belgard Castle, the company’s sales of €13.2 bn were 11 per cent higher than the corresponding period last year, according to interim results published by the group this week.

The performance was driven by both organic growth and acquisitions.

Meanwhile, earnings per share from continued operations were 51 per cent ahead of last year.

Albert Manifold, chief executive of CRH, said: “On the back of our strategic initiatives, CRH has delivered significant profit growth in the first half of 2019, with a good performance in our heritage business and strong contributions from recent acquisitions.”

He said the company are continuing its share buyback programme, with a further tranche of €350 million to be completed by year end – bringing the total share repurchases in 2019 to €900m.

With continued strong cash generation and financial discipline, CRH expect year-end debt metrics to be below normalised levels.

“We anticipate further progress in the second half of the year with benefits from positive underlying momentum in all divisions as well as good contributions from acquisitions,” said Mr Manifold.

In its America’s materials arm, on the back of a “healthy” economic environment, like-for-like sales were 2 per cent ahead of the first six months of 2018. However, adverse weather conditions in certain regions hampered activity.

The company said good underlying activity prevailed in key markets in Western and Eastern Europe and like-for-like sales growth of 6 per cent reflected a more normalised weather pattern compared with the first half of 2018, along with price progress across all product lines.

However, in the UK, construction activity continued to decline amidst Brexit-related uncertainty.

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