CRH acquires €1.45bn in firms

CRH spent €1.45 billion on acquisitions last year, some €450 million more than in 2004.

The building material group, Ireland’s most acquisitive company, said much of the cash was spent in the second half of 2005.

The largest deal, the purchase of a 26.3% stake in Spanish firm Corporacion Uniland for €300 million, was concluded last week.

CRH chief executive Liam O’Mahony said he was very pleased that the level of completed transactions has increased during recent months following a relatively slow pace of spend in the first six months of 2005 when only €230m was spent on acquisitions.

“As previously indicated, we continue to work on opportunities for acquisitions across all our operations and remain committed to completing transactions at prices that will contribute to long-term value creation for our shareholders,” he said.

In Europe, the company bought 13 companies for a total of €373m.

This included two concrete products businesses in Finland and one each in France, Belgium and Denmark. It also added four builders merchanting businesses in Switzerland, Austria and Germany.

In America, CRH spend €202m on 18 companies on top of a €344m investment in a number of firms that was announced last November.

“These deals should give a useful boost to the European products and distribution business which was the only segment of CRH’s operations that failed to make progress in 2005,” Davy Stockbrokers analyst Joe Burrell said yesterday.

NCB Stockbrokers added the increase in the total spent by CRH on takeover should allay concerns in the market that acquisition opportunities had dried up.