CRH

CRH's second-half development expenditure amounted to €407m, of which €223m was spent in Europe and by a Chinese associate and the remaining €184m in the Americas, essentially in the United States. CRH also received approximately €21m from the sale of its Premier Periclase seawater magnesia business in Ireland.

The biggest deal in the period was the acquisition of the VVM cement business in Belgium, which cost CRH in the order of €100m and added two grinding centres and two batching plants. In Finland, three batching plants with a combined annual output of some 50,000Mm³ were purchased as well as access to 1.6Mt of sand and gravel reserves. In Ukraine, a 51% stake has been acquired in Cement Limited of Odessa from Teixeira Duarte, which has a grinding station with an annual cement capacity that has recently been increased to 0.55Mt. The clinker will now be provided from CRH's new dry-process Podilsky works. In addition, €28m were spent on buying a concrete poles business in France and on distribution assets in the Benelux. The Chinese associate Yatai Building materials commissioned a 1.5Mta cement mill in Harbin, North China, taking its cement capacity in the region to 4.1Mta.

The North American heavy building materials spending amounted to €112m and a further €72m were spent on the American building products and services operations, making at total of €184m (US$258m). In total, 254Mt of aggregates reserves were added as well as six batching plants and six asphalt operations plus some associated concrete block and distribution assets. The US$101m (€72m) spent on products and distribution resulted in the addition of two products businesses and 24 distribution branches.