CRH has acquired ready-mixed concrete businesses in Florida from cement giant Cemex in a deal worth US$250m (€170m, writes Richard Curran.

The acquisition follows months of negotiations on the possibility of buying a much larger group of assets from Cemex which could have amounted to around $3 billion to $4 billion.

However, in a statement issued late last Friday, CRH said that the negotiations it had been involved in since September had yielded this smaller deal and the wider talks had now come to an end.

The Florida operations being acquired comprise 26 concrete plants and six block plants. The ready-mix business operates in five market areas, Tampa, Southwest Florida, Orlando, Jacksonville and the Florida Panhandle, while the block business operates primarily in the Tampa/St Petersburg and Fort Myers/Naples areas. In Arizona, CRH will acquire two quarries and six concrete locations principally in the Tucson area.
In the 11 months to the end of November, CRH has completed acquisition initiatives totalling €2bn.

Total spend in the first half of the year amounted to almost €1bn comprising the acquisition of Swiss builders merchant Getaz Romang completed in May; the purchase of a 50 per cent stake in Denizli Cement in Turkey and the buyout of the remaining 50 per cent of Paver Systems in the US announced in April; the acquisition of Harbin Sanling Cement Company in China announced in February plus 31 other initiatives announced by the company in July.

In the second half a further €1bn has been invested in acquisitions. This includes the August buyout of the remaining 55 per cent of Cementbouw BV in the Netherlands; completion of four separate transact ions by the Americas Materials Division as announced in September; the purchase of the Cemex assets described above, in addition to a strong flow of traditional CRH development opportunities.


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