CRH lowers profit forecast

Ireland's largest publicly quoted company, 723 CRH, has said the third quarter of 2012 saw much lower growth in its American operations and a higher rate of decline in Europe.

In an interim management statement, the building materials group reported a decline in like for like group sales of 3% for the quarter, and 1% for the nine months to 30 September.

Sales revenue for the last quarter was 1% ahead of 2011 when it reported revenues of €5.3 billion.

Cumulative group revenue to the end of September was 4% ahead of the €13.5 billion reported last year.

The company said mild weather in November/December 2011 in both Europe and North America contributed to a strong fourth quarter EBITDA outcome.

“For 2012, the recent major storm activity in the eastern United States, which is likely to result in significant reconstruction work that should benefit 2013, has caused significant disruption to our materials operations in the region over the past two weeks,” it said.

"With this negative short-term impact, and the ongoing weakness in certain major European markets, we anticipate that EBITDA for the last three months of the year will be below 2011.”