Including its share of the jointly-owned Texas Lehigh Cement, the turnover of Eagle Materials for the first nine months of the trading year fell by 15.9% to US$569.6m, with plasterboard, cement and aggregates and concrete all showing revenue declines of around one-fifth.  The group trading profit before corporate overheads fell by 47.2% to US$87.6m, with cement contributing 81.7% of the group total.  Corporate overheads declined by 2.0% to US$14.1m, while the capital spent in the cement operations contributed substantially to the 74.1% increase in the interest to US$23.8m.  As a result, the pre-tax profit dropped by 63.9% to US$49.7m.  Shareholders’ funds at the end of December stood at US$425.2m, 2.2% lower than a year earlier.  

The turnover in cement rose declined by 14.0% in the period to US$238.0m, of which the wholly-owned operations registered a 20.6% reduction to US$162.0m while the group’s share of the Texas joint venture with HeidelbergCement improved by 4.6% to US$76.1m.  At the trading profit level, there was a 17.3% reduction to US$22.1m.  Total cement deliveries were 16.1% lower at 2.15Mt (2.37Mst), with volumes at the Buda joint venture declining by 3.4%, while wholly-owned tonnage dropped by 21.1%.  The amount of cement bought in from third parties continued to decline.  The average cement price edged ahead by 0.9% over the nine months to US$106.51 per tonne (US$96.63/st), but the price in the third quarter was 1.4% lower at US$104.72 (US$95.00/st).