3rd Mar 2016 10:11
LONDON (Alliance News) - Irish building materials company CRH PLC saw its shares rise on Thursday morning as it posted higher pretax profit and revenue for 2015, driven by acquisitions it made and a robust US market.
CRH shares were up 5.1% to 1,945.00 pence mid-morning, one of the best performers in the FTSE 100.
CRH 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 the LafargeHolcim assets it acquired, covering businesses in Europe, Canada, Brazil and the Philippines, delivered sales and profit ahead of expectations in the year.
The group benefited in part from the positive translation effect of the strong dollar on its results, as US sales increased thanks to more normal weather patterns at the start of 2015 than a year earlier and from the continued positive momentum in the US construction industry.
Trading conditions in Europe were more mixed, with challenging markets in Switzerland, France, Germany and Finland offsetting better activity in Ireland, Poland, Denmark and the Netherlands.
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.
Turning to 2016, CRH expects a broadly stable European market, with flat sales anticipated in Switzerland, Belgium, Germany and France. It expects growth in the UK, Ireland the Netherlands and said encouraging trends have continued in Poland and Finland.
CRH expects the US economy will continue to grow at a similar pace to 2015, but is positive on increased infrastructure funding following the passing of a federal programme on highway funding last year.
By Sam Unsted; [email protected]; @SamUAtAlliance
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