CRH plc

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CRH, Plc

Type	Public - NYSE, ISEQ and LSE
Founded	?, Ireland Cement Limited (1936), Roadstone Limited (1949) & merger (1970)
Headquarters	Dublin, Ireland
Key people	P.J. Molloy - Chairman W.I. O’Mahony - Chief Executive
Products	Various building materials
Employees	67,000 (2004)
Slogan	The International Building Materials Group
Website	www.crh.ie/

CRH is also the acronym for Irish company Celtic Resources Holdings plc, a mining company

CRH plc, ISEQ: CRH, LSE: CRH, NYSE: CRHCY, FWB: CRH, is an Irish building material group, formerly called Cement-Roadstone Holdings plc. CRH was formed through a merger in 1970 of Irish Cement Limited and the Roadstone group of companies. It is quoted on the Official Lists of the Irish and London Stock Exchanges.

1 Financials
2 Markets
3 Competition
4 Controversies
- 4.1 Operation of a private bank without licence
5 Recent Developments
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Financials

The company has long been one of the leading companies on the Irish Stock Exchange^{[citation needed]}, it is currently the largest industrial group on the ISEQ index.

It had €14.4 billion in turnover in the financial year ending 31st December 2005, the highest of any Irish company and up from €1.3 billion ten years ago. Pre-tax profits were €1.3 billion, again, one of the highest of an Irish company. Growth has been rapid and organic in its main market, the US, and also due to the successful acquisition and integration of a steady stream of small and medium size building material companies.

[edit] Markets

Geographical revenue sources are split almost 50/50 between Europe and the US, product revenues are split evenly between finished building products and raw building products and in type-of-business revenue between new construction and renovation of existing buildings.

[edit] Competition

CRH is now the largest company of its type in the US^{[citation needed]}. In Europe, its other market, it is the third-largest producer of concrete and of building materials overall^{[citation needed]}. Unlike Lafarge, Saint Gobain and Holcim, the only three building material companies larger than CRH, it has stuck doggedly to its Euro-US corporate axis. The other companies have moved into Asian and African markets. One emerging market for CRH is Latin America; the company has become a pre-eminent supplier in Argentina, Peru and Chile^{[citation needed]}. It is the largest Irish corporate investor in the continent, another of its corporate milestones^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Controversies

[edit] Operation of a private bank without licence

A tribunal of inquiry set up by the Irish Government to investigate corrupt payments to politicians, discovered that between 1987 and 1994, a private, unlicenced bank had been operated from the registered offices of CRH by its chairman, Des Traynor. It was further found that eight directors of CRH had control of accounts in this bank. These directors were:Tony Barry, James Culliton, Michael Dargan, Gerald Hickey, Diarmuid Quirke, Desmond Traynor, Robert Willis and Richard Wood. The scheme was run in conjunction with Guinness and Mahon Bank and Ansbacher Cayman Bank. Its founding purpose was to avoid currency exchange controls, but was later used to facilitate personal tax evasion.

[edit] Recent Developments

CRH has recently struck out from its two-continent strategy and invested in a cement factory in the Heilongjiang region in China. This move perhaps is an insurance against a possible slow-down in its US housing business.

CRH has announced a further investment in the Chinese market, shifting its focus even further east-ward. CRH has acquired a 26% stake in an estate of 8 cement production plants in China, with an option to acquire 49% in the future.^[1]

The company which it invested in is called Jilin Yatai Group.