Cement Roadstone Holding

CRH plc, through its subsidiaries, manufactures and distributes building materials. It operates in three segments: Americas Materials, Europe Materials, and Building Products. The company manufactures and supplies cement, lime, aggregates, precast, ready mixed concrete, and asphalt products; concrete masonry and hardscape products comprising pavers, blocks and kerbs, retaining walls, and related patio products; and glass and glazing products, including architectural glass, custom-engineered curtain and window walls, architectural windows, storefront systems, doors, skylights, and architectural hardware. 

It also offers precast concrete and polymer-based products, such as underground vaults, drainage pipes and structures, utility enclosures, and modular precast structures to the water, energy, communication, transportation, and building structures markets; and construction accessories, such as anchoring, fixing, and connection solutions, as well as lifting systems, formwork accessories, and other accessories used in construction applications. In addition, the company offers network access products, which include composite access chambers, covers, passive safety systems, retention sockets, sealants, and meter boxes; and paving and construction services. 

Further, it provides building and civil engineering contracting, and contract surfacing, operates logistics and owned railway infrastructure; sells and distributes cement, and supplies access chambers and ducting products. It serves governments, contractors, homebuilders, homeowners, and sub-contractors. The company operates primarily in the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom, the rest of Europe, the United States, and internationally. The company's name is an abbreviation of Cement Roadstone Holdings and was formed through the merger in 1970 of Cement Ltd and Roadstone Ltd. It is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland.

The company's name is an abbreviation of Cement Roadstone Holdings and was formed through the merger in 1970 of Cement Ltd and Roadstone Ltd. According to Jonathan Guthrie of the Financial Times, it is pronounced "Cee Orr Haitch". The company went public on the Irish Stock Exchange in 1973. CRH entered the United States in 1978 by buying Amcor, a concrete products group in Utah which would then form the basis of the company's U.S. division, which is now called Oldcastle Inc. Subsequent large purchases in the US included Callanan Industries, a New York State based aggregates and asphalt producer in 1985. In 1987, CRH was listed as a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

In the 1990s the company moved into France with a number of buys including Raboni SA, a builders merchant company and drainage systems and concrete vault manufacturing group Prefaest SA. In 1995, CRH made its first entry into new or emerging markets when it bought Holding Cement Polski, which later gained majority control of Cementownia Ozarow, one of Poland's major cement producers. That acquisition marked the first CRH cement manufacturing operation outside Ireland. By the end of the decade, CRH numbered more than a dozen operations in Poland and it has since invested in cement production in neighbouring Ukraine, most recently with the announcement of an agreement to buy Mykolaiv Cement from rival Lafarge. 

In 1999 CRH bought Finnsementti Oy, Finland's only cement producer, and Lohja Rudus Oy, Finland's top producer of aggregates and ready-mix concrete. In the 1990s, US acquisitions by CRH included Betco Block & Products Inc. of Bethesda, Maryland 1990. CRH acquired Balf Co. in Connecticut, Lebanon Rock in Pennsylvania, Keating in Massachusetts and Sullivan Lafarge in New York state in 1994. It acquired Allied Building Products, which specialized in roofing and cladding products and Tilcon, a major road construction specialist in the Northeast United States in 1996.

The company entered Switzerland in 2000 with the EUR 425 million purchase of Jura Group, adding cement, concrete and aggregates operations, as well as a regional distribution network. In the following year, CRH took an interest in Nesher Israel Cement Works, the only cement producer in that country, by taking a 25% stake in its holding company Mashav. In July 2003 it agreed to pay EUR 693 million to acquire Cementbouw - a do-it-yourself store chain and building materials producer in the Netherlands. 

In 2004 CRH paid €429m to purchase a 49 percent stake in Portuguese cement producer Secil. It sold that stake again in 2012 for €574m following a ruling on a shareholder dispute by an arbitration tribunal at the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce. In the United States, CRH acquired Ohio's Shelly Group in 2000, CRH acquired Mount Hope Rock Products, based in New Jersey in 2002 and Ashland Paving And Construction of Atlanta in 2006. APAC was the company's largest deal. In 2007 CRH purchased four companies worth a total of $350 million to add to its US materials division: these companies are Conrad Yelvington Distributors Inc., Eugene Sand & Gravel, Cessford Construction and McMinn's Asphalt and Prospect Aggregates. Also in 2008, CRH agreed to purchase a landscape paver, Pavestone, for $540 million. 

In 2006 CRH invested in a cement factory based in the Heilongjiang region in China. It has built on that presence by acquiring a 26% stake in the Jilin Yatai Group and an option to acquire 49% in the future. In 2008 CRH agreed to buy a 50 percent stake in Indian cement company My Home Industries Ltd. for €290 million.

CRH confirmed in 2013 that it was interested in looking at other opportunities in India. In 2015, CRH remained listed in both London and Dublin. In February 2015, CRH agreed to purchase the UK building materials producer Lafarge Tarmac. In 2015, CRH purchased US$6.5 billion of assets from the newly formed company LafargeHolcim. The acquisition almost tripled CRH's net debt, bringing it to €6.6 billion. The LafargeHolcim acquisition made CRH "the world’s third-largest building materials group by market value." A week after CEO Albert Manifold announced that CRH was looking for large-scale acquisitions, in August 2015, CRH paid $1.3 billion for CR Laurence, a glazing company based in California. At the time, CRH already had a similar business in North America called BuildingEnvelope, with 4,500 employees, which it said it would integrate with CRH. 

By November 2015, CRH was getting about a fifth of its operating earnings from US infrastructure. In June 2016, the Financial Times reported that CRH earned twice as much profit from the Americas versus Europe. As of November 2016, half the asphalt, aggregates and assorted material it sold went to the United States. Headquartered in Dublin, CRH was the biggest producer of asphalt in the US and the third largest producer of ready-mixed concrete. Sales for 2016 were €27.1 billion, an increase of 15 percent from the year before. Profit after tax was €1.3 billion. In April 2017, the Irish Times noted that chief executive Albert Manifold's package almost doubled in 2016 to €10 million, despite disagreement among shareholders the year before on pay. As of 27 April 2017, CRH was Ireland's biggest company. The Chief executive was Albert Manifold. That quarter, sales were up in its three divisions in Europe, while the Americas materials unit had higher sales as well. At the time, it did 65 percent of its business in the Americas, while the market in the Philippines proved to be "challenging," weighing down performance in Asia. 

On 27 April 2017, CRH held their annual general meeting in Dublin, at which point 17 percent of shareholders voted against the company's executive pay structure. The year prior, 40 percent had voted against it. At the meeting, chairman Nick Hartery noted that the share price in the company had increased 80 percent since 2014. Also in April 2017, it was reported that CRH was expecting to make a large-scale acquisition in 2018. At the time, over the earlier part of the year, CRH had spent €500 million on eight acquisitions. In early May, BlackRock increased its stake in CRH plc. 

Also in 2017, CRH sold Allied Building Products to Beacon Roofing Supply for $2.6 billion. By the end of the year, the biggest acquisition was Fels-Werke GmbH, a German leading lime and aggregates business with 1 billion tonnes of high-quality limestone reserves, 11 production locations, nine in Germany and one in both the Czech Republic and Russia. In 2018, CRH purchased Ash Grove Cement. In July 2019, CRH announced that it was selling its European distribution arm to Blackstone, a US investment firm, for €1.64 billion.

“We are committed to improving the built environment through the delivery of superior materials and products for the construction and maintenance of infrastructure, housing and commercial projects, all around the world.”

“CRH's vision is to be the leading building materials business in the world.”