Ireland: Ireland's CRH expects earnings to rise in 2014 after revenues grew sharply in its struggling European business in the first four months of the year.

The company said that sales rose by 10% in Europe to the end of April 2014, driven by better weather conditions and improving underlying market conditions. In the US, cold weather hit early season activity, however, stronger housing activity and a strengthening economic background saw revenues rise by 2%.

"In Europe, the good start to the year in much more favourable weather conditions is encouraging. While we continue to expect second-half performance to be ahead of 2013, we believe that the strong year-to-date rate of organic growth is likely to moderate," said CRH.

The company said that it expects earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) in the seasonally less significant first half of 2014 to rise to Euro500m from Euro400m in 2013. Earnings in the second-half of 2014 should be somewhat ahead of 2013. CRH also said that it had seen limited impact on trading to date from the political unrest in Ukraine, one of its main European markets, where cement sales volumes were up by 30%. However, the outlook remains uncertain.

After announcing a review of its portfolio in 2013, CRH said in February 2014 that it would sell 45 businesses representing 10% of net assets and would continue to keep a watch on other operations accounting for 20% of its assets. On 7 May 2014 CRH announced that it was assessing another selection of businesses that account for a further 10% of its net assets, where the returns potential was not yet clear. The review will be completed in the third quarter of 2014.