Vulcan’s volumes fall, with cement seeing steepest drop
Vulcan Materials’ turnover fell by 26.3% last year to US$2,690.5m, with the EBITDA dropping by 38.1% to US$548.4m.
The lower volumes, lower profits from the sale of assets and a 1.9% increase in net interest charges to US$173.0m gave rise to a pre-tax loss of US$19.2m compared with a profit of US$75.1m in the previous year.
Capital expenditure was cut by more than two-thirds to US$109.7m from US$353.2m in 2008, and is expected to be only slightly higher this year at around US$125m.
Shareholders’ funds at the end of the year did improve by 14.0% to US$4,052.0m and the net debt declined by 23.2% to US$2,715.7m to give a gearing level of 67.0%, well down from the 99.5% of a year earlier, in the wake of the acquisition of Florida Rock. Published under Cement News
