Building giant continues quest for acquisitions as it shells out €133m

CRH continues to actively seek further acquisitions, after shelling out €133 million on 13 bolt-on buys over the course of the first half of this year.

“We’re seeing a good flow of bolt-on opportunities across our business and we continue to monitor wider developments in our industry,” said group chief executive Myles Lee after yesterday’s first half trading update from the building materials giant ahead of its full set of interim results next month.

He added: “However, we’re maintaining a patient approach in progressing transactions in light of the challenging market backdrop. CRH is very well positioned to deliver a healthy transaction flow as trading visibility improves. Meanwhile, the disposal process for our insulation and climate control businesses in Europe – which we announced earlier this year – is advancing well.”

Nine of the acquisitions made during the first six months of the year were via CRH’s Americas Materials division, with about €113m spent. Another €20m went on four bolt-on acquisitions in Europe; including a quarry business in Portugal, a concrete venture in Holland and a cement import terminal in Wales. The US investments expanded the group’s geographical spread there and added permitted aggregates reserves of 243 million tonnes. The US division also commenced work on a 263m tonne quarry in Georgia, which will increase the scale of its aggregates operations in the south-east.

The group also commenced three capital projects (including two in China) – with a total expenditure of €84m over three years – which technically takes its first half 2010acquisition and development outlay to €236m.

In comparison, the group spent €280m on acquisitions and investments in the first half of 2009 and a further €50m up to November of last year.

“The transactions fit very well into our strategy of focusing on value-adding investments in our existing markets,” added Mr Lee.