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Displaying items by tag: Ireland
CRH sees strong performance in 2011
28 February 2012Ireland: The Irish cement group CRH, which has cement interests in many key growth markets, has released financial results for 2011 that show an improvement in all of its fiscal indicators. Sales came in at Euro18.08bn for the year, compared to Euro17.2bn in 2010, a 5% improvement. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) came in at Euro1.65bn, up by 3% compared to 2010 when its EBITDA was Euro1.61bn. CRH's operating profit for 2011 was Euro871m, a 25% improvement compared to 2010 and its pre-tax profit was Euro711m, up by a third compared to the Euro534m it made in 2010.
CRH's Chief Executive Myles Lee said, "The positive profit outcome for 2011 demonstrates the advantages of CRH's product and sectoral end-use balance and the benefits of the extensive reorganisation and restructuring measures implemented in response to the exceptionally difficult markets of recent years. Assuming no major economic or energy market dislocations, we expect to generate further like-for-like revenue growth in 2012 with the achievement of targeted price increases a key priority. This combined with benefits from acquisitions completed in 2011 leads us to expect further progress in the year ahead."
CRH cleared for Odessa expansion
05 December 2011Ukraine/Ireland: Ukraine's Antimonopoly Committee (AMKU) has allowed Jura-Cement Fabriken AG, a subsidiary of Ireland's Cement Roadstone Holding (CRH), to acquire control of LLC Cement in Odessa. The AMKU committee said that this decision allows Jura-Cement-Fabriken to hold over 50% of the votes in the Odessa plant's management body.
The Odessa Cement Plant started operations in 1965 and its capacity is currently 550,000t/yr. The plant was acquired in May 2005 by the Portuguese company Cimento e Produtos Associados S.A., which is owned by Cimpor, Teixeira Duarte and Engenharia e Construcoes, amongst others. LLC Cement's general director, Miguel Machado, has stated that Euro40m has been invested in the Odessa plant since 1996. CRH currently owns OJSC Podolsk Cement and LLC Lviv Concrete in Ukraine.
CRH in talks to buy BaselCement
06 September 2011Russia/Kazakhstan/Ireland: Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska is holding talks to discuss selling up to 75% of his cement production company BaselCement to Ireland's Cement Roadstone Holdings (CRH). BaselCement CEO Vyacheslav Shmatov and CRH's press office declined to comment.
At present, BaselCement only has two operating facilities, one in Russia and the other in Kazakhstan. The company's plant in the Krasnoyarsk city of Achinsk produced 436,500t of cement in January to July 2011, up from 150,400t that it produced in the same period of 2010. BaselCement's plant in Kazakhstan produced 400,000t of cement in the whole of 2010.
The proposed deal could also include two cement plants with a combined annual production capacity of 3.5Mt/yr that are currently being built in the Ryazan and Novgorod regions. CRH has preliminarily estimated BaselCement's value at Euro550-600m (excluding its subsidiary BaselCement-Pikalyovo). BaselCement is forecast to have a net profit of Euro45.8m in 2011.
Firms to net a Euro50m carbon windfall
18 July 2011Ireland: The Irish cement industry stands to make windfall profits of up to Euro50m 'at the taxpayers' expense,' according to sources familiar with the EU's emissions trading scheme (ETS). The sources estimate that companies such as CRH, Quinn Cement and Lagan Cement have made Euro26m over the past five years from the over-allocation of carbon credits by the government.
The sources estimate that the cement industry stands to make a further Euro25m when the next round of carbon credits is allocated under the ETS. The government allocates a certain amount of emission permits to companies for free. The idea is that polluting companies would buy credits in the market if they exceeded the permitted amount of emissions.
This system is known as 'cap-and-trade' but an initial over-allocation arose, partly because of the construction bust which meant that firms did not produce as much cement as expected. The sources said the transfer was a waste of public funds at a time when the exchequer was financially stressed. They also argued that the effect was to distort the market in favour of making cement.
The estimate of the scale of the subsidy comes after the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) noted earlier in 2011 that the current EU ETS provided potentially large windfall gains for certain industries, such as electricity generation and cement production. The ESRI argued that such windfall gains should be recaptured by society through the tax system.
A spokesman for Cement Manufacturers Ireland did not dispute the figures, saying that the industry had invested millions of Euros in new technology upgrades to become one of the most efficient in Europe. "The current recession was not predicted when allowances were allocated under rules proposed by the Commission," he said.