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Construction company CRH reported a rise in profit led by 'positive' momentum in its pre-existing businesses and 'strong' contributions from recent acquisitions.
For 2019, pre-tax profit rose to €2.1bn from €1.7bn as sales rose 6% to €28.3bn on-year.
Like-for-like sales in its Americas, European materials businesses increased 4% and 5% respectively, while its building products business saw like-for-like sales rise 2%.
The company invested about €0.7bn in 62 acquisition and investment transactions in 2019.
The full-year dividend per share up was raised by 15% to 83p a share.
'In our Americas materials division, supported by continuing favourable economic conditions, we expect growth in the US residential and non-residential market sectors with positive momentum in infrastructure activity, underpinned by state and federal funding,' CRH said.
'In our Europe materials division, we anticipate positive construction demand in key markets with steady progress in Western Europe and good growth in Eastern Europe. While Brexit has created uncertainty in the UK construction market, we expect some stabilisation in 2020,' it added.
At 10:13am: (LON:CRH) Crh PLC share price was -196.5p at 2591.5p