Eagle Materials’ turnover for the six months of the end of September declined by 17.6% to US$355.7m and the pre-tax profit dropped by 68.6% to US$33.2m, after a 105.2% jump in the net interest charge to US$16.1m.  As a result of the losses incurred in the plasterboard operations, the trading profit from the cement operations accounted for 89.3% of the group total.
 
Turnover from cement fell by 13.0% to US$168.2m, of which the wholly-owned operations saw a 20.7% drop to US$116.1m, but the group’s share of the Texas Lehigh joint venture managed a 10.8% sales increase to US$52.1m.  The trading profit was down by 22.2% to US$49.7m as the 8.4% profit improvement by the joint venture in Texas was more than eliminated by the 32.0% drop in the profit from wholly-owned businesses.  Group cement deliveries were down by 15.5% to 1.79Mt (1.97Mst), with a 2.3% advance at the Buda joint venture being swallowed up by the 21.8% drop in the wholly-owned tonnage.  The average cement price improved by 1.4% to US$107.27 /t (US$97.32/short ton), but was 0.4% lower in the second quarter compared with the first quarter. 
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