CRH has hailed a “satisfactory” start to 2017, with first quarter sales ahead by 4% on a year-on-year basis.

Building materials giant CRH is expected to spend over €1bn this year on bolt-on acquisitions, with outlay in the first quarter alone already topping €600m.

CRH shares surged by 5% yesterday, on the back of both a record set of yearly earnings and US president Donald Trump’s reiteration of his promise to spend $1tn on US infrastructure improvements.

CRH yesterday faced one of the largest shareholder revolts over executive pay in Irish corporate history, with more than 40% of its shareholders — representing a combined €8.5bn of its €21.4bn market value — opposing a hike in bonuses at its AGM.

CRH chief executive Albert Manifold will see his pay increased by 8.5% this year. 

Building materials giant CRH expects further large assets to go on sale as international rivals move to improve their balance sheets, adding it is looking at “hundreds” of potential acquisitions.

CRH has taken its committed spend for the current year to around €8bn on the back of another international mega-deal.

CRH’s investment spend for this year looks set to inch past the €7bn mark, with the company heavily linked with an €800m move for the number two player in South Korea’s cement market.

Manila-based investment firm Aboitiz Equity Ventures has announced that it plans to co-invest with CRH in the purchase of the Filipino assets of French cement company Lafarge.

CRH could end up spending around €8bn on acquisitions and investments this year, management hinted yesterday.

CRH is continuing to work under the assumption that the merger of its European peers Holcim and Lafarge will succeed, but has maintained that a collapse of the proposed deal will not hamper its own ambitious growth plans.

CRH’s “game-changing” €6.5bn takeover of certain assets from its European peers Holcim and Lafarge will not be the limit of its acquisition spend this year, with almost €1bn being generated from operations in 2014 set to fund a good pipeline of smaller deal prospects.

Building materials group CRH raised €1.6bn through an equity placement yesterday to part-fund the biggest acquisition in the company’s history.

CRH expects to see its financial recovery continue during the second half of the year, after swinging back into profit in the first six months.

CRH has spent €60m on acquisitions and investments — covering seven "small" transactions — since the beginning of 2014 and claims to have approximately €1.5bn available to spend over the next year and a half.

CRH is to dispose of between 10% and 30% of its subsidiary portfolio over the next few years; but also has the capacity to spend up to €1.5bn on fresh acquisitions over the coming 18 months.

Incoming chief executive Albert Manifold has said staff reductions in CRH’s northern European operations will be an inevitable part of continued cost reduction drives by the building materials group.

Albert Manifold has been appointed as group chief executive of construction giant CRH, effective January 1, 2014.

CRH has said it has several investment and acquisition deals in the pipeline, but has declined to say if its overall spend for 2012 will eclipse last year’s €600m outlay.

YOUR correspondent Deirdre Manifold (Irish Examiner letters, March 12) suggests that we should feel sympathy for the thugs who kicked and beat to death a young lad of their own ilk outside a Dublin nightclub. This incident was said to be ‘drink-related’.