3rd Mar 2016 07:13
LONDON (Alliance News) - Irish building materials group CRH PLC on Thursday reported growth in pretax profit and revenue in 2015 driven by acquisitions and a strong US market.
The FTSE 100-listed company said its pretax profit for the year to the end of December was EUR1.03 billion, up from EUR761.0 million a year earlier, while revenue rose 25% to EUR23.64 billion from EUR18.91 billion thanks to the significant volume of acquisitions made in the year.
CRH acquired EUR6.5 billion of assets from France's Lafarge and Switzerland's Holcim during the year, after the pair were forced to divest as part of their EUR41.0 billion merger. CRH also spent USD1.3 billion on US group CR Laurence Co Inc, a Los Angeles-based manufacturer of customer hardware and installation products for the professional glazing industry.
CRH said its margins improved over the year as sales continued to grow in its Americas business, offsetting more mixed conditions in Europe. The more normal weather patterns in the US at the start of 2015 meant trading got off to a good start, and this continued through the year, while CRH also benefited from the translation effect of the strong dollar.
CRH said it will pay a flat 44.0 cents final dividend, leaving its total dividend flat at 62.5 cents.
"As a result of good performance from our heritage businesses and contributions from acquisitions, 2015 was a year of significant profit growth for CRH. Strong cash generation resulted in our year-end debt metrics being ahead of target, and we are well on track to restoring these metrics to normalised levels during 2016," said Chief Executive Albert Manifold.
"Recently there has been some uncertainty about the pace of global growth. Our focus remains on consolidating and building upon the gains made in 2015, and against this backdrop we believe 2016 will be a year of continued growth for the group," he added.
By Sam Unsted; [email protected]; @SamUAtAlliance
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