Vulcan’s external cement sales more than halved
Vulcan Materials’ turnover for the first nine months of the year fell by 26.4% to US$2,100.3m as public sector economic stimulus funds have yet to have much of an effect on US aggregates demand.
Only in the states of Illinois and Tennessee has there been any notable increase in government contracts leading to increased work being actually carried out to date and some states, notably Florida, have very long lead times before anything happens and the lower commercial and industrial building activity has continued to push aggregates volumes downwards. As a result, the underlying EBITDA declined by 39.6% to US$436.2m.
Coming down the profit and loss account, the effect gets worse, with the trading profit falling by 66.1% to US$147.2m and the pre-tax profit dropping by 93.0% to US$21.6m. A tax credit limited the reduction at the net level to 79.4% to US$43.7m.
So far this year, the net debt has been reduced by some US$700m, while capital expenditure for the full year is now expected to amount to about US$140m, compared with US$353m in 2008. Published under Cement News
