CRH - H1 2022

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the CRH plc 2022 interim results conference call. For the duration of the call, you will be on a listen only. However, you may submit your questions at any point during the call. Press star one and one to queue for a question. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. The next voice you will hear will be Albert Manifold.

Albert Manifold (Group Chief Executive)

Hello, everyone. Albert Manifold here, CRH Group Chief Executive. You're all very welcome to our conference call and webcast presentation, which accompanies the release of our 2022 interim results earlier today. Joining me on the call is Jim Mintern, our Group CFO, Randy Lake, Chief Operating Officer, and Tom Holmes, Head of Investor Relations. Over the next 40 minutes or so, Jim, Randy and I will take you through a brief presentation on the results that we've published this morning, highlighting the key drivers of our trading performance for the first six months of 2022, as well as providing you with an indication of our expectations for the remainder of the year.

We'll also update you on the significant level of portfolio activity completed in the year-to-date, representing the continued development of our integrated and sustainable solution strategy to deliver further value for all our stakeholders. In addition, we will discuss how we place sustainability at the core of our business, taking responsibility as the leader in our industry to reduce the impact of construction and deliver a more resilient built environment. Afterwards, we'll be available to take any questions you may have, and all told, we hope to be done in about an hour or so. At the outset, on Slide 1, let me take you through some of the key messages of the year so far. Despite a challenging and volatile input cost environment across our markets, I'm pleased to report a good first half performance for CRH.

With sales, EBITDA and margin all ahead of the prior year. Active portfolio management and the efficient and disciplined allocation of our capital are core components of how we create value for our shareholders, and this year has been no different. In April, we completed the divestment of our building envelope business for an enterprise value of $3.8 billion, representing an attractive exit multiple of 10.5x EBITDA. We reallocated the proceeds from that divestment to support further growth and value creation going forward. In the year-to-date, we have invested $2.8 billion on 16 solutions-focused acquisitions. The largest of these was the acquisition of Barrette Outdoor Living for $1.9 billion. An excellent addition to our architectural products business that will complement and enhance our existing offering of sustainable outdoor living solutions in North America.

We've also invested approximately $900 million on 15 small and medium-sized bolt-on acquisitions, representing an average acquisition multiple of 8x EBITDA. I'm also pleased to report that we're declaring an interim dividend of $0.24 per share, a 4% increase on the prior year, and in line with our progressive dividend policy. In addition, our ongoing share buyback program is running at an annualized rate of approximately $1.2 billion. As you sit here today, CRH has the strongest balance sheet in its history, providing us with significant optionality to create further value for our shareholders, and Jim will expand more on that later in the presentation. As we look ahead to the remainder of the year, the underlying demand environment remains positive across our markets.

Against a challenging inflationary cost backdrop, we expect full-year EBITDA to be in the region of $5.5 billion. All of this reflects the strength and resilience of the group we are today. Underpinned by all the work we've done in recent years, reshaping and repositioning our business to become a provider of value-added materials, products and services, integrated solutions that better serve our customers' needs and deliver higher growth and value for our shareholders. Turning now to Slide 2, and our financial highlights for the first six months of the year. Overall, a good performance with sales, EBITDA, margin, and earnings per share, all well ahead of the prior year period. Total sales of $15 billion were 14% ahead, reflecting positive underlying demand in North America and Europe, as well as strong commercial management across our businesses.

This enabled us to deliver $2.2 billion of EBITDA, 21% ahead, reflecting good organic growth and strong contribution from recent acquisitions. Despite contending with some significant input cost inflation across our markets, particularly in the area of energy and raw materials, I'm pleased to report further improvement in our margin, 90 basis points ahead of the prior year. Now all of this translates into strong growth in our earnings per share, up 36% on the prior year period. On Slide 3, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on this performance. Now yes, we continue to demonstrate good operational and commercial management, but the real driver has been our integrated solution strategy.

We have transitioned from being a commodity producer of base materials to a fully integrated provider of end-to-end solutions, uniquely integrating our materials, products and services to better serve our customers' needs and deliver more value to them. This is not new for CRH. We've been doing this for many years, and today Integrated Solutions represents approximately 2/3 of our sales. This differentiated strategy uniquely positions us across the entire construction value chain, enabling us to become more deeply embedded with our customers, creating long-term value partnerships which drives more repeat business while allowing us to price based on a value-added full service offering rather than simply providing base materials alone. There are also significant operational benefits, delivering greater production and logistic efficiencies, as well as higher utilization rates across our asset base. Today, we are selling more of our soft skills because our customers need them.

They increasingly want our knowledge, expertise, and experience to solve their specific problems, in addition to the materials and products that we already provide. By delivering more value to them, we are getting paid more for it. As a result, we are generating not just higher profits, but also higher margins and higher returns. You can see this reflected in our margin performance on the left-hand side of this slide. Our integrated solutions strategy has helped us to manage the significant input cost pressures that our industry has experienced over the past 12 months. While our global and U.S. industry peers have experienced margin compression in each of the last four quarters, we have delivered consistent margin expansion.

All of this demonstrates the strength and resilience of CRH, and it's testament to the work we have done over the years to structurally improve our business year in, year out, focusing on more resilient sectors of the construction market, which has reduced the cyclicality of our business, and increasing our exposure to publicly funded infrastructure and RMI demand, with each today representing approximately half of our business. We have also become a more agile and flexible business, enabling us to better adapt to whatever challenges may come our way. Now, to give you a better sense of what we mean by integrated solutions, let me briefly show you two examples from across our businesses.

First, to the West Davis Corridor on Slide 4, a large, complex road infrastructure project currently under construction in the state of Utah, where we are helping to address the growing population and future transportation needs of the area. Our unique offering enables us to provide a fully integrated bespoke solution for the Utah Department of Transportation. By combining the breadth of our materials, products, and services with our design, innovation, and engineering expertise, we're able to deliver a complete end-to-end service across the entire project lifecycle, from designing and manufacturing the products, right through installation, maintenance, and indeed, recycling.

We're not only able to build a road, we also have the capability to provide all the additional infrastructure that goes over, around, and underneath the highway, such as this one, including the bridges, the on-ramps and the off-ramps, and crucially, the water and energy infrastructure systems necessary for effective management of drainage, irrigation, and power lines. Simply put, we have the knowledge and capability to provide the full solution. That's the key. We simplify the construction process and make it better quality and better value, integrating our materials and products with our design, engineering, and technical expertise. All of this provides significant value to our customer, and it generates higher profits, returns, and cash for our business. On Slide 5, another example of our solutions offering in action.

This time it's High Speed Two in the United Kingdom, a new high-speed rail link with the first phase running from London to Birmingham, the largest infrastructure project in Europe, which will better connect communities across the country. As a preferred supplier on this project, we're able to combine the breadth of our materials and products with our technical and engineering skills to provide the specific types and grades of aggregates, soil stabilization, and specialist concrete mixes required for a rail infrastructure project as large and as complex as this one. We've been able to leverage our significant knowledge and expertise in tunneling developed over many years of similar infrastructure projects in Switzerland. Our infrastructure products business is also providing highly engineered access chambers for underground power cabling, a bespoke solution that significantly reduces construction time and health and safety risks on site.

Here again, our integrated approach across the entire construction value chain has delivered significant value for both our customer and our businesses. As you have seen, our performance has been underpinned by integrated solutions. This is only one component of the deliberate and focused execution of our strategy in recent years, outlined here on Slide 6. We have developed leading positions in North America and Europe, providing us with an attractive mix of high-growth markets complemented by more mature but highly cash-generative markets. We have repositioned towards more resilient sectors of the construction market, which has reduced the cyclicality of our business, increasing our exposure to both public construction, where demand is supported by dedicated long-term funding programs, and indeed RMI activity.

We are focused on markets which benefit from long-term structural growth trends, regions such as the South and West of the United States and indeed, Central and Eastern Europe, which have significant new build construction needs as a result of population growth and migration trends. Our integrated solutions strategy is enabling us to differentiate ourselves from the competition, transitioning to a full-service, value-based proposition, a strategy that delivers more value to our customers on large-scale, complex construction projects above and below the ground, areas where our core capabilities lie. We have a disciplined approach to capital allocation, which is focusing on maximizing value to our shareholders, all underpinned by maintaining our financial discipline through the cycle. Our strong and flexible balance sheet provides us with a significant optionality to create further value, whether that's through acquisitions, investments in existing businesses, or increasing cash returns to our shareholders.

We also continue to lead our industry in the whole area of sustainability, delivering a more resilient and higher-performing built environment for the society we serve, and Randy Lake will expand more on that later. In summary, the CRH that is delivering this performance is a stronger, better, and more resilient business than ever before. All of this is coming through with the performance of our businesses. On Slide 7, you can see the benefits of our strategic repositioning, delivering significant improvement in our financial performance over the last cycle. Since 2013, we have delivered strong profit growth, equivalent to annual growth of 13% in each of these years, and over 900 basis points of margin expansion. You can also see how our relentless focus on converting those profits into cash at an average rate of over 80% has generated approximately $28 billion over that time period.

This cash performance has enabled us to invest in our businesses for further growth and increase cash returns to our shareholders. Returns, a key performance metric for all businesses, increased by 650 basis points since 2013. A good performance, but still plenty of room for improvement. As you can see, we are a growing business and growing profitability. We're also becoming more efficient about the process, demonstrated by the further improvements in our margins, returns, and cash that we are generating. All of this attests to our ability to deliver superior performance through the cycle. Now, before we take you through our divisional trading performance, I want to provide you with a brief overview of the market backdrop and the trading environment across our major markets.

Turning to Slide 9 and beginning with North America, which today represents approximately 75% of the group EBITDA. Overall, construction activity continued to benefit from good underlying demand during the first half of the year. In the United States, the infrastructure funding backdrop is robust, with federal funding underpinned for the next five years after the passing of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act last November. This includes an approximately 50% increase in federal highway funding alone and underpins increasing demand in the years ahead. The bill not only covers roads, but also other areas, including water, power, and technology infrastructure, which are big parts of our business. State budgets are also strong. In the year-to-date, there's been a positive momentum in transportation ballot initiatives to maintain and improve U.S. infrastructure network in the years ahead.

Infrastructure represents approximately 40% of our business in North America, and as the largest integrated building solutions business in this market, we are very well positioned to benefit from the significant increase in infrastructure investment going forward. Turning to residential construction, where demand remained resilient during the first half of the year, particularly remodeling activity, as consumers continued to invest in their homes and outdoor living spaces. Now, of course, interest rates are rising, which could lead to a moderation in the pace of growth going forward, particularly in new build construction. Long-term demand fundamentals are attractive, supported by population growth, migration trends, low inventory levels, and the significant level of underbuild in recent years. As for non-residential, we continue to experience good demand in our key segments, including warehousing and distribution facilities.

Before turning to our divisional trading performance, I'd like to take a step back for a moment and reflect on the performance of our entire North American business in recent years, including materials and products. As you can see on the right-hand side of Slide 10, we have delivered significant improvements in our financial performance in recent years, outperforming some of the best in our industry. Over the past five years, we have delivered annual profit growth equivalent to 12% in each of these years. The real highlight for me is the improvement in our margin over that period. 630 basis points ahead and significantly outperforming the industry average of just 50 basis points.

All of this is the result of what I outlined earlier, the strategic reshaping and repositioning of our businesses in recent years, building leading market positions in attractive markets, and of course, the continued benefit of our integrated solution strategy across the core areas of road solutions, utility infrastructure, and indeed outdoor living. I'm now gonna hand you over to Randy, who'll take you through our first half trading performance for our Americas Materials and Building Products businesses.

Randy Lake (COO)

Thanks, Albert, and hello, everyone. Turning now to Slide 11 and beginning with the trading performance of Americas Materials. Like-for-like sales and EBITDA were 12% ahead of the prior year, reflecting good underlying demand across all our markets, despite some real challenging weather conditions, primarily in the Northeast and Western regions of the United States. Despite significant input cost inflation during the first half of the year, the team delivered further improvement in our underlying margin, a good performance that reflects the continued benefits of our integrated solution strategy together with strong commercial management and cost discipline. As we look ahead for the remainder of the year, underlying demand remains positive with good momentum in our backlogs, albeit the inflationary cost environment remains challenging, and we'll need to manage that carefully in the months ahead.

Next to Building Products on Slide 12, which delivered further profit growth and margin expansion in the first six months of the year. Good demand across all product lines and strong contribution from recent acquisitions. Our Infrastructure Products business delivered a strong first half performance, benefiting from increasing demand for infrastructure solutions that protect and transport critical utilities in both North America and Europe, an area where we see significant growth potential going forward. With its exposure to residential RMI activity, our Architectural Products business delivered further growth against a strong prior year comparative, benefiting from good outdoor living demand from both retail and professional customers. In addition, our construction accessories business, which provides highly engineered anchoring, fixing, and connection solutions, also continues to perform well.

For building products overall, like-for-like sales growth of 11%, which translated into a 14% increase in EBITDA and a further 50 basis points improvement in margin.

When you look at the building products business, this performance marks the continuation of consistent delivery across building products in the recent years and reflects the benefits of the strategic reshaping of this business. We focused on developing market-leading positions in attractive sector and end-use markets, acquiring solutions-focused businesses which provide a good strategic fit, and investing in expansionary CapEx initiatives to support organic growth.

Albert Manifold (Group Chief Executive)

Thanks, Randy. If I can ask you now to turn to Slide 13 and onto Europe, representing approximately 25% of group EBITDA today. Now, notwithstanding the challenges of an inflationary backlog and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, overall construction demand remained resilient during the first half of the year. Infrastructure activity continued to be supported by public funding programs, particularly in the U.K., France, and Poland. Residential construction demand also remains favorable, with good new build and RMI activity across our key markets. Now similar to North America, non-residential construction is benefiting from good demand in subsectors such as warehousing, data centers, and indeed logistics. Moving to Slide 14, and similar to what we outlined earlier for North America, here you can see our financial performance in Europe, pulling together both our materials and products businesses in the region.

Against a generally slower recovery and more challenging market backdrop, our performance has not been as strong compared to our North American business in recent years. Nevertheless, we've delivered continued improvement in EBITDA equivalent to annual growth of 4% over the past five years. I'm also encouraged by our margin improvement over that period, increasing by 390 basis points and well ahead of the industry average. We have an attractive footprint in Europe, with stable growth in the West complemented by higher growth in the East. In Western Europe, our businesses are well positioned to benefit from resilient RMI demand as well as new build construction growth.

Western Europe has also emerged as the global center for sustainable construction innovation, and our strong positions in these markets provides us with an opportunity to remain at the forefront of building solutions with knowledge and expertise that we can transfer right across the group to better serve our customers and reduce the impact of construction on our environment. In Eastern Europe, our businesses will continue to benefit from significant infrastructure investment, supported by good levels of government and EU funding, as well as strong residential demand. This region is also experiencing emerging demand for more sophisticated end-to-end building solutions, not just base materials, and we're well-placed to benefit as this develops further. Overall, the benefits of our integrated solution strategy have yet to fully play out here.

If anything, our performance in North America just highlights the scale of the opportunity for further growth in Europe going forward. Turning now to the performance of Europe Materials on Slide 15. Against that backdrop, our businesses delivered a good underlying performance, with sales and EBITDA 14% ahead of the prior year. Our like-for-like margin was in line with last year, a good result in the context of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and its impact on our operations in that market. In fact, if we were to exclude Ukraine from our performance, our like-for-like EBITDA margin would have been ahead of the prior year, which highlights the good delivery from the rest of our European businesses during the first half of the year.

Of course, our thoughts remain with the people of Ukraine at this very difficult time, and we're continuing to do everything we can to protect and support our employees and their families on the ground. In the rest of Eastern Europe, our businesses continue to perform well, with good growth in Poland and Romania in particular. In Western Europe, our businesses in the U.K., Ireland, and France continue to benefit from solid demand underpinned by publicly funded infrastructure programs. Despite a volatile energy cost environment, I'm encouraged to see positive pricing momentum continuing in Europe, with pricing ahead across all markets and products reflecting good commercial discipline. Looking ahead for the remainder of the year at a challenging cost backdrop, we continue to focus on cost recovery and margin management across our businesses.

Now at this point, I'm gonna hand you over to Jim to take us through our financial performance and the capital allocation in further detail.

Jim Mintern (Group CFO)

Thank you, Albert, and hello, everyone. As Albert mentioned earlier, we've had a good first half, and this is reflected in our financial performance as outlined on Slide 17. Let me briefly take you through the main drivers of our EBITDA performance, moving from left to right on the slide. Starting with organic growth of $236 million, 13% ahead on a like-for-like basis, reflecting positive underlying demand, good commercial progress to address the inflationary input cost environment, and the continued benefits of our integrated solution strategy.

Moving next to our development activity, and you can see on the slide, acquisitions net of divestments contributed $204 million of EBITDA in the first six months of the year, reflecting good contributions from recent acquisitions, particularly National Pipe, our U.S. water and energy infrastructure solutions business, which we acquired in the second half of last year. Finally to currency translation, where a stronger U.S. dollar relative to our other currency exposures resulted in a $51 million headwind during the first half of the year. Turning now to Slide 18, where I'll just take a moment to highlight some of the key components of our net debt position and our strong and flexible balance sheet. Over the last 12 months, we have generated $3.3 billion of operating cash, including over $600 million in the first half of 2022.

We've also received significant proceeds from divestments, particularly from our building envelope business, which net of acquisitions resulted in an inflow of $2.2 billion over the last 12 months. We've continued to invest to support further growth in our existing businesses, and over the same period, CapEx investments resulted in a net outflow of $1.6 billion. Consistent with our focus on increasing cash returns to shareholders, we have returned $2.2 billion in the form of dividends and share buybacks over the period. In July, we completed the acquisition of Barrette Outdoor Living for an enterprise value of $1.9 billion. Taking this into account results in a pro forma net debt position of $6.2 billion, representing a net debt to EBITDA ratio of approximately 1.1x on a trailing 12-month basis.

This is the strongest balance sheet we've ever had, providing us with significant optionality for further value creation going forward. Turning to Slide 19, I would like to briefly update you on our recent capital allocation activities, a core focus for us as a management team, whereby every capital deployment decision we make is analyzed and assessed through the lens of maximizing value for our shareholders. You can see this in the significant level of portfolio activity completed year-to-date. In April, we divested our building envelope business for an enterprise value of $3.8 billion, representing an attractive exit multiple of 10.5x EBITDA. We have reallocated these proceeds to support further growth and future value creation.

As I mentioned earlier, in July, we completed the acquisition of Barrette Outdoor Living, representing a multiple of less than 8x EBITDA after the savings and synergies we have identified to date. In the year-to-date, we've also invested approximately $900 million on 15 solutions-based bolt-on acquisitions, and the average multiple of these deals was 8x EBITDA pre-synergies, a reflection of our disciplined and value-focused mindset. We have a strong pipeline of acquisition opportunities, and as you have seen, we have significant capacity on our balance sheet. As CFO, I can assure you that we will always maintain our discipline and our focus on shareholder value. We continue to support further organic growth in our existing businesses through expansionary CapEx investment.

So far this year, we have invested approximately $200 million expanding capacity in the markets where we see attractive future growth prospects, high returning, low-risk investments which will deliver in the years ahead. We also continue to return significant amount of cash to our shareholders in the form of dividends and share buybacks. This morning, we have announced a 4% increase in our interim dividend, building upon the significant increases delivered in recent years and in line with our progressive dividend policy. We continue to see share buybacks as an efficient means of returning cash to shareholders. Our ongoing buyback program is now running at an annualized rate of approximately $1.2 billion. The current tranche of our program is well underway and will be completed no later than the 13th of September.

All of this together, disciplined M&A, CapEx investments, and increasing cash returns, reflects our efficient and disciplined approach to capital allocation to maximize value for our shareholders. On Slide 20, we highlight our recent acquisition of Barrette Outdoor Living, North America's leading provider of fencing and railing systems for the outdoor living space. This is a significant transaction for the group that complements and enhances our existing offering in this area. Our outdoor living solutions business, Architectural Products, has been one of our fastest-growing business in recent years. In fact, over the last five years, it has delivered annual sales and EBITDA growth of 8% and 16% respectively and has increased its margins by 500 basis points.

By integrating Barrette with our existing business, we have a complete offering of industry-leading brands, which you can see on the right-hand side of this slide, enabling us to provide a complete outdoor living solution to our customers. It's an excellent strategic fit with our existing customer offering, with significant synergies already identified. Residential repair, maintenance, and improvement activity represents the vast majority of Barrette sales, consistent with the steps we have taken in recent years to reduce the cyclicality of the group. We also see long-term demand going forward, underpinned by an aging housing stock in growing need of repair, as well as the substitution of legacy materials such as timber for more sustainable, longer-lasting, and better-performing solutions. Barrette also has strong sustainability attributes, particularly with regard to circularity. Recycled materials are used extensively in the manufacturing process, and all of Barrette's products are themselves 100% recyclable.

Overall, an excellent addition to the group with significant opportunities for further growth and value creation going forward. Turning now to Slide 21, and here you can see some further examples of how we are continuing to build out our integrated solution strategy through bolt-on M&A activity and expansionary CapEx investments. Firstly, our acquisition of Calstone in March, a leading provider of outdoor living solutions, including hardscapes and masonry products in Northern California. This acquisition expands our existing product offering, and its manufacturing facilities provide additional capacity and production capabilities in this high-growth market. It also has good sustainability credentials through its use of renewable energy and recycled materials in the production process. In May, we acquired Hinkle, a vertically integrated end-to-end infrastructure solutions business in Kentucky. This represents the expansion of our operations into central Kentucky, an attractive geographic infill for our existing material businesses.

Integrating the business with CRH will enhance our customer offering in the region and provides opportunity to leverage the group's technical, operational, and commercial expertise to deliver further value. In April, we acquired Rinker Materials, a provider of engineered products and solutions which will expand our stormwater and drainage infrastructures offering in the high-growth Texas market. By integrating this business with CRH, we are providing fully integrated end-to-end water infrastructure solutions in some of the fastest-growing cities in the U.S. We have also continued to invest in our existing businesses, expanding capacity in higher growth regions and end-use markets, including hardscape and paver manufacturing facilities in the U.S. and Eastern Europe, as well as continuing to improve our efficiency and sustainability performance by investing in alternative fuels and waste heat recovery systems.

However, not only is our integrated solution strategy behind our improved financial performance, it is also key to delivering a sustainable future. At this point, I'll hand over to you, Randy, to update you on some of our key sustainability focus areas.

Randy Lake (COO)

Thanks, Jim. You know us as a responsible business, committed to taking the lead on decarbonization in our industry. Earlier this year, we announced an ambitious new target to reduce group-wide carbon emissions by 25% by 2030. This is an absolute target, not a relative CO2 per ton target. It's transparent, covers all of our activities across the group, it's been certified by SBTi, and it keeps us on the path to achieving our ambition of becoming a net zero business by 2050. We have detailed bottom-up roadmaps in place across all of our businesses, and we're making good progress against each of those plans. As you can see on the right-hand side of this slide, a challenge of this scale and complexity means that it won't be as simple as a linear reduction every year.

Some of the investments and process improvements that we made and are currently making will take time to take effect. There'll be times when our absolute emissions will increase, and there will be years where we deliver significant progress. Of course, this is all set against the next decade of growth that we have in front of us, demonstrating the true scale of our ambition. It won't be easy, but we have a robust plan in place and a long track record of industry-leading emission reduction behind us. We're absolutely committed to playing our part to decarbonize our business and our society, protect the world for future generations. Turning to Slide 24 into circularity, another key pillar of our approach to sustainability. We believe increasing circularity in construction delivers significant long-term environmental and societal value. It also makes good business sense.

For example, we're leading the industry in alternative fuel usage, replacing more expensive fossil fuels in our production processes with lower carbon alternatives like recycled waste, biomass, and renewable energy sources. By increasing the use of more recycled materials in construction, we can preserve our own scarce natural resources and prolong the life of our reserves. In fact, as you can see on the chart on the right-hand side of the slide, since 2014, our use of recycled materials has doubled to approximately 40 million tons. We're the largest recycler in North America, where approximately 25% or one out of every four miles of road we build is built with recycled materials. It's our ambition to increase that to 50% over the next decade. On to Slide 25. Of course, sustainability in construction is about much more than decarbonization and circularity.

There's a growing demand to deliver a more sustainable built environment, one that reduces construction times, improves the efficiency and safety of buildings, and prolongs the life cycle of structures. It's really about solutions that are better for the environment and can withstand and protect against climate change. Through our integrated approach, we're uniquely positioned across the value chain to collaborate with our customers to develop value-added solutions and building practices to address these needs. Over the last decade, we've invested approximately $1 billion in innovation across our businesses. We've recently established a new innovation venture fund with an initial allocation of $250 million to support further research and innovation in sustainable construction across our businesses. We continue to expand our offering of sustainable low carbon products with 46% of product revenue now with enhanced sustainability attributes.

Of course, there's a lot more to do. This is a journey, but we're making good progress, and we'll continue to build on that as we go forward.

Albert Manifold (Group Chief Executive)

Thanks, Randy. A good update there. Of course, a key priority and indeed opportunity for our businesses into the future. Turning now to outlook on Slide 27 and our expectation for our businesses during the second half of the year. In terms of trading outlook, notwithstanding the inflationary input cost environment and some ongoing uncertainties with regards to the wider macroeconomic conditions, overall, we expect the positive underlying demand environment across our key markets to continue for the remainder of the year. In North America, underlying demand is favorable despite continued inflationary pressures. While in Europe, construction activity remains resilient against a backdrop of significant energy cost volatility and the impact of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

We're focused on maintaining good commercial management and strong cost control across our businesses, as well as the continued execution of our integrated solution strategy to deliver superior growth and performance. Looking ahead, against a challenging cost backdrop and absent any major market dislocations, we expect full year group EBITDA to be in the region of $5.5 billion, well ahead of the prior year and representing another year of progress for CRH. Now before I hand over to Q&A, I want to leave you with Slide 28 and a brief summary of how the group is positioned going forward. We have built leading positions in our core markets in North America and Europe. These are markets with attractive long-term fundamentals, significant construction needs, and we expect to benefit from our integrated sustainable solutions strategy as it continues to deliver.

We have focused on more resilient sectors of the construction markets, which have reduced the cyclicality of our businesses, increasing our exposure to both publicly funded infrastructure and RMI demand. We've also become more agile and a more flexible business, enabling us to adapt to any challenges that come our way. As you've heard from Jim, we have the strongest balance sheet in our history with a net debt to EBITDA ratio of approximately 1.1x on a pro forma basis. This provides us with significant opportunities to execute on our strong and active M&A pipeline. Rest assured that we will always maintain our discipline and our focus on shareholder value.

Through the active management of our portfolio, we've become a narrower, deeper, and more focused business, and we will continue to refine and reshape our business to deliver superior growth, returns, and cash generation for our shareholders. Through our integrated offering of value-added products and solutions, we're addressing the changing needs of construction, leading the industry in both circularity and decarbonization to reduce the impact of construction on our world. We have a wealth of experience across our group. Our management teams have been through periods of uncertainty and business disruption many times before, and we have a proven track record of performance and delivery through the cycle. That concludes our presentation this morning, and we're now happy to take your questions.

May I ask you please state your name and the institution that you represent before posing your questions, and in consideration to others on the line and to make the best use of the time we have available, can I ask you please to limit your questions to one each where possible. I'll now hand you back to the moderator to coordinate the Q&A session of our call.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, you will need to press star one on one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Once again, please press star one and one if you would like to ask a question. We will take our first question. Please stand by. Your first question today comes from the line of Ross Harvey from Davy. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Ross Harvey (Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks, and thanks, Albert, Jim, Randy, and Tom. My question is, you've clearly achieved positive pricing momentum in H1. Have you seen any demand destruction?

Albert Manifold (Group Chief Executive)

Hi, Ross. Albert, and good afternoon to you. Yes, we have seen positive price performance in the first half of the year, which has been welcome given the challenge we've been faced with. It's not so about price, of course, and we'll expand upon that later about the margin delivery. I have to say that we haven't really seen demand destruction. We've talked through this morning about exactly how we've seen the fundamentals in our markets remain strong. In North America, United States is 75% of our profitability.

I mean, it's in a good place with regard to demand. It has significant infrastructure needs that are well-funded now after the IIJA Act signed in November. Residential is quite robust, cooling a bit, but still quite strong. Again, glad to see that the non-res business is doing well. Of course, Europe and Americas are two major centers for us. In particular, Central and Eastern Europe remains fairly robust as well, despite the price increases go through. At the end of the day, the world still needs construction. That need is being funded by the public purse and indeed the need for housing and the need for a growing economy. I might just ask you to turn to you, Randy.

Just maybe you might just talk a little bit about in terms of how funding works within the United States between the federal and the state government in terms of how they fund construction going forward and how we think it'll hold up volumes in the years ahead.

Randy Lake (COO)

Yeah. I think at this point in time, when you look at our greatest lens, I guess, into future work would be aligned with our construction business. To date, you know, the backlogs are ahead of where we were last year. It's a good bidding environment. The states over the last number of years have been very active in, I'll call it state and/or local initiatives, infrastructure and initiatives that have been supported by their stakeholders, the voting public. Their balance sheets and receipts as it related to dedicated infrastructure projects is strong. That's about half of the funding that takes place in the infrastructure space in the U.S.

Even beyond that, if you look at the states, kind of their health, last year, I think 47 out of 50 states saw their tax revenues exceed what they had budgeted. Their balance sheets are strong, and that's an important part of the funding mechanism. That has supported what we've seen so far this year. Then you layer that in, obviously, the Infrastructure Investment Act, which is gonna be a 50% increase over the next five years over current funding levels. We haven't really seen that hit the bidding environment yet, but that has given confidence to the states to take on RMI work as well as some capacity expansion.

Oftentimes though we talk about infrastructure, people focus just on roads, but certainly, as it relates to our infrastructure products business, you know, water, energy, telecom are an important part of delivery in terms of the integrated solution that we provide to DOTs. Again, as part of the IIJA, there's an additional $200 billion dedicated to supporting improvements in those particular areas. The combination gives us a pretty good outlook in terms of underlying demand and infrastructure.

Albert Manifold (Group Chief Executive)

Thanks, Randy. I have to say across Europe, again, same again, Ross, you know, despite the fact that we have seen significant price increases this year on the back of the cost increases, demand looks fairly robust as we go to the remainder of this year and what we could see into next year.

Ross Harvey (Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks for both your comments. Very interesting. Thank you.

Albert Manifold (Group Chief Executive)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now take our next question. Please stand by. Your next question comes from the line of Gregor Kuglitsch from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Gregor Kuglitsch (Executive Director)

Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. I will put the question on the guidance and sort of squaring up the circle between what you're saying for the full year, the second half margins. If you could just help us out maybe with some of the building blocks there, and I guess in a more sort of broad sense, how you see margins trending. Thank you.

Albert Manifold (Group Chief Executive)

Hi, Gregor Kuglitsch. Good afternoon to you. Two questions there. One in, I guess, really looking at sort of margin for the full year, see how it's trending and maybe second and maybe a bit more specific on the bidding blocks. I might ask Jim Mintern to help us with that, when I finish talking about the margin. Look, as the world knows, we saw a very significant increase in energy in the first quarter of this year. I certainly have never seen such a rapid and sustained increase in energy over such a short period of time. It took us a while to get ahead of it, but we did get ahead of it, and that's what has helped deliver for the full first half of the year, a really good performance.

What we are seeing now, of course, we're now seeing another wave in quarter three, not necessarily energy costs. Energy costs have backed off a bit, but all the secondary costs that you would expect on the back of the energy costs. Increasing input costs to materials, consumables, logistics, transportation, labor, all that's been coming at us at a lower pace than we saw in the first half. More sustained cost increases. It's going to take time for us to recover those costs. It's a matter of timing. The issue with our business is not a demand issue. The fundamentals are strong. It's just a cost issue. We may have seen a cooling of our margin in the second half of the year.

We will be ahead for the full year, but it's unlikely the second half margin performance will be as strong as the first half of the year. Overall, 2022, you will see margin expansion in CRH for our business. With regards to the guidance, Jim, and the component building blocks with us.

Jim Mintern (Group CFO)

Sure. Hi, Gregor. Good afternoon. Yeah, we've guided 5.5% on a like for like basis for 2021. That comes back to a number of $5 billion excluding OBE. In our assumptions, we have assumed an FX headwind of about $150 million. Really, you're kind of rebasing to $4.85 billion up to the $5.5 billion. Obviously, in the last 12 months, we've had a lot of portfolio activity with the disposal of OBE in April of this year and the acquisition of Barrette, which closed in the first week of July. Also some good activity in the second half of last year on the M&A.

When you net out the whole M&A, the contribution from the M&A activities is just in excess of EUR 300 million, the remainder being organic growth to the 5.5%.

Gregor Kuglitsch (Executive Director)

Thank you very much. That's helpful.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We'll now take our next question. Please stand by. Your next question comes from the line of David O'Brien from Goodbody. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

David O'Brien (Head of Industrials Equity Research)

Good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I will focus a little bit more on energy, if that's okay. Typically, you've given us a sense of where the energy cost route of the sales has trended. Wondering, could you give us some color on how that's looked in the first half and maybe where you expect it to go, H2? More generally, just how you approach hedging the various energy sources as a strategy.

Albert Manifold (Group Chief Executive)

Hi, David. Look, you know CRH very well over the past, I guess, 20+ years. Energy has really been in a range between 9%-11% of our total overall revenues. We're probably at the top end of that range this year, hardly surprising. Again, just for those of you who follow CRH, you probably know again that bitumen is about 50% of our total energy spend, and the rest is a smorgasbord between electricity, coal, diesel, petcoke, gas, all of those. Look, we're very experienced in managing this particular sector. First of all, on our winter fuel program, our winter fuel program is there for a bitumen whereby we buy upwards of north of 40% of our total bitumen requirements are bought really much from September all the way through to April. That's the natural hedge.

That covers us, gives us certainty, but also allows us to buy bitumen at favorable rates because the oil refineries are maxed out during the winter season, and we're able to take that into our storage and maintain and hold that. For the remaining products, it's fair to say we work on rolling forward contracts, and at any one time we're about 50% covered in any of the main categories rolling forward for about six months. We don't try and beat the market, we just try and have certainty as to where we are. We always pretty much mark to market.

You're rolling forward, some of these contracts could be three months, some of it could be nine months, but on average, it's about six months across the major cost categories that I mentioned here being, as I say, mainly sort of fossil fuels and electricity.

David O'Brien (Head of Industrials Equity Research)

That's great. Thanks, Albert.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now take our next question. Please stand by. Your next question comes from the line of Arnaud Lehmann from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Arnaud Lehmann (Managing Director and Equity Research analyst)

Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Albert, Jim, Randy, and Tom. My question is on sustainability, if I may. Thank you for the update. That's quite helpful. I want you to come back on your quite ambitious target to reduce CO2 emissions by 25%, by the end of the decade. It's an absolute term, and you highlighted that. That's quite a differentiation relative to some of your peers. Could you remind us what's your key initiatives? Anything recently that you've been implementing? Related to that, are you accounting for this in your M&A strategy in terms of acquisition and disposals? How does that fit with your sustainability strategy? Thank you.

Albert Manifold (Group Chief Executive)

Thanks, Arnaud, there. Look, I mean, just to remind people again, in April of this year, at our Investor Day, excuse me. We set out four pillars which really set out our sustainability strategy, which are at the core of our strategy for CRH. As you mentioned, Arnaud, one is about our decarbonization program where we set out our targets to reduce our CO2 emissions, our total CO2 emissions by 25%. On the base of that, wherever you emit CO2 from, a ton of CO2 is a ton of CO2. But it's also around circularity in terms of increasing recycling, and I'm gonna ask Randy to help me out with this in terms of setting out exactly where we currently are on circularity and what our ambitions are.

It was also about manufacturing and focusing on building out sustainable products to make construction more sustainable. That's a hugely important part. It's not only just about reducing the emissions, it's actually about helping contribute in a positive way, and also in terms of our commitments towards how we could work with our communities as well. Maybe on a specific question with regards to CO2 and the specific initiatives around it. Maybe you might just mention about the circularity as well, Randy, please.

Randy Lake (COO)

Yeah. If you focus on, as Albert said, on sustainability, kind of, I'll kind of bucket it in three big areas. One is on decarbonization. We, you know, the target that we have as an absolute target. That's, you know, focused in the entire enterprise, but it can be very focused things such as alternative fuels, folks working on our clinker factor, calcined clays, things like that within our cement operations. As well as transferring many of our asphalt locations into kind of zero carbon sites through the use of biogas. Those are individual projects that are coordinated at the center, executed locally, and they're part of the individual roadmaps of every operation we have across CRH. Circularity is a critically important part.

I think we're probably the most uniquely positioned to actually support the communities in which we serve in and around sustainability. We can take actually the construction waste from job sites, reuse that in the manufacturing of our projects, and then be able to deliver products and systems that are more sustainable in nature in terms of lowering the overall carbon footprint. You see in the presentation, certainly what we've done over the years in terms of the quantum of products we've recycled, north of 40 million tons. If you look specifically in the U.S. in a road, our road business, Number 1 paver road builder in the country.

25% of every road mile that we execute on is using recycled materials and our plans from the bottom up take us to 50% over the next 10 years. A lot of work and individual projects go into those sort of things. Certainly if you look at then to Albert's point on kind of the collection of all those to drive, you know, products in specific or systems, you know, there's a lot of a variety of things underway there. We everything from material technology to innovative solutions, I guess, call out specifically our National Pipe business. Great complement to our concrete infrastructure products group that has kind of the connecting to those concrete structures into the PVC pipes into individual homes. I'd call that a solution.

That's solving an issue for some of our major customers. That's the type of innovation I think is gonna be required to drive and deliver on our ambitions. Currently, we have, you know, over 60 projects in the pipeline with that $250 million on that innovation venture fund. That's to encourage that kind of thinking in our local operations. It's an all-inclusive approach. It's gonna take really decarbonization, circularity, and actually development of new products and systems.

Arnaud Lehmann (Managing Director and Equity Research analyst)

Thank you so much.

Albert Manifold (Group Chief Executive)

Thanks, Arnaud.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now go to our next question. Please stand by. Your next question comes from the line of Paul Roger, BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Paul Roger (Managing Director)

Yeah. Hi, Albert. Hi, team. Congratulations on the results. Yeah, so I just have one question then. I was wondering what impact do you think a gas crisis in Europe would have on the group, either directly or indirectly? And I guess also how prepared are you if that actually happens over the winter?

Albert Manifold (Group Chief Executive)

Hi, Paul. Good afternoon to you there. I believe gas prices from a CRH perspective in Europe, actually we're not major users of actual natural gas or LPG at all. I'm gonna infer you're talking about sort of Russian gas as well in terms of security of supply as well. We're not major users of gas, so it doesn't really have a major effect upon us directly. It probably has an effect on our customers and the economies that we operate within, and the one country I'd watch out for there probably is Germany most of all. Not a very big country for us, nor a very important country for us, but you know, that's the one I would watch out for.

Most of our big markets, Central and Eastern Europe, are really working on other fossil fuels. There are many coal-fired power plants in our businesses. Our big cement plants obviously use petcoke and coal. Likewise, when you move to the west of Europe, the U.K., and Ireland, really working off North Sea gas, North Sea fossil fuels as such, so not really an issue for us as such. Doesn't really impact us directly, but obviously you watch out in terms of what it means for Germany. Per se, very important country for us with regard to profitability, but obviously the knock-on effect across Europe, so we watch that very carefully.

Paul Roger (Managing Director)

Yeah, presumably it has quite a major impact potentially on power costs, though, as well.

Albert Manifold (Group Chief Executive)

It can do, but again, the major power generators in the countries that we operate in. If you look to go specifically to the northern countries, it's mainly hydro wind. If you go down to Central and Eastern Europe, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, all on coal, all based on coal. Big country for us like France, 89%-91% nuclear. Britain and Ireland, as I said to you, satisfied by its own fossil fuel. Really the one to watch is Germany more than anything else. Again, not a very big profit-generating business for us in Europe.

Paul Roger (Managing Director)

Perfect. Thank you very much.

Albert Manifold (Group Chief Executive)

Thanks, Paul. Have a good day.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now go to our next question. Please stand by. Your next question comes from the line of Elodie Rall from JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Elodie Rall (Managing Director)

Hi, good afternoon, gentlemen. My one question will be on acquisitions, if I may. On the one hand, you reported very strong margin contribution, if I'm not mistaken, in H1 at 28%. My first part of the question is what drove this? Was it the fact that the underlying businesses that you bought are such high margins, or did you improve them already? What is the expectation that we should have for H2, and how is the pipeline shaping up for acquisitions? Thank you.

Albert Manifold (Group Chief Executive)

Thanks, Elodie. Maybe I'll just take that question, and lastly ask Jim maybe to come in at the end and comment as well, if you don't mind. Well, first of all, I'll take the last question. First of all, with regards to the pipeline. You know, we often talk about having an active pipeline. Sometimes it's important to prove you've got an active pipeline. This year we sold the Oldcastle Building Envelope business in the first quarter of this year for EUR 3.8 billion. Yet in the first half of the year we were able to execute on EUR 2.8 billion of deals. They didn't just arrive at our door the day we closed the OBE business.

We actively have a long list of businesses that we look at, and we look to try and see if we can execute against those. That's the pipeline coming through. The timing of the pipeline, we decide what's right for CRH when we have the capital available, when we see the opportunities for value, and we see the market being favorable. The active pipeline still continues. It's key and core to what CRH has been doing for the last 20+ years, you know, it's a classic demonstration of that pipeline coming through and it remains strong. Secondly, the delivery this year in the first half of the year, yes, we bought well. Also I have to say it's down to synergies.

I mean, we focus on delivering synergies across our businesses. The delivery of synergies, improving those businesses, it's how they fit into our network, how they fit into the solutions business and how they add to that. That's what's been a big part of that. I mean, I know you're still not specifically asking the question, but one classic example of it now is to go back and look over the last couple of years and look at the second-largest acquisition we ever did in CRH, which is Ash Grove Cement. We closed that deal in 2018. Now I know we look back in the history and say that's a long time ago. Actually, in CRH, it's not a long time ago. It's only a few days in our world.

The profitability of that business has doubled over the past 3-4 years. Now, the US cement market has not doubled over the last 3-4 years. That's because we've taken that business, we've improved the profitability of that business, primarily because our European expertise in cement was brought over there. It helped contribute, and will help contribute for the next years ahead. We managed to integrate those cement businesses into our existing downstream business. We got improved performance, increased pull-through, and again, that has helped the profitability of the business. Specifically with regard to the performance this year, Jim, and maybe looking through the delivery of the deals we've done so far this year as well.

Jim Mintern (Group CFO)

Yeah. Hi Elodie, good afternoon. Yeah, we had, as Albert said, good strong performance on the deals as we were in H2 last year, and it's really around an acceleration of the synergy delivery. In total, as we call that, for the full year, the Barrette deal which closed in the first week of July, and 15 other bolt-on deals which came to about $900 million as an EBITDA multiple of about 8x. Total contribution from the M&A activity this year we expect to be above $300 million, right? That includes the deals from the second half of last year also. Good, strong delivery.

I think what you're able to do is just, or what we're able to do is really plug in those acquisitions in the solution space into our legacy assets in those particular regions and kind of accelerate on the delivery of the synergies.

Elodie Rall (Managing Director)

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now take our next question. Please stand by. Your next question comes from the line of Cedar Ekblom from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Cedar Ekblom (Executive Director)

Thanks very much. You flagged the strength of the balance sheet with your net debt EBITDA at 1.1x, and that's even after allocating your EUR 3 billion to M&A. Your guidance implies continued strong cash flow generation in the second half, and yet if we look at dividend growth, this continues to lag earnings and cash flow growth and the run rate on the buyback has not been lifted. I'd just like to understand when you would consider revisiting the capital return policy. I appreciate that you want to maintain flexibility for M&A, but it seems that even with the potential increase in cash returns, your flexibility for M&A would remain. I'd just like to understand how you're thinking about cash returns and if you need to rethink your policy on that. Thank you.

Albert Manifold (Group Chief Executive)

Hi, Cedar Ekblom, and good afternoon to you. Looking back at the history of CRH and most of us, all of us and myself, we've been here for a long time, and I can remember well in 2004, post the recession or the slowdown we saw in 2002, 2003 in the US and Europe. Likewise, I was here then in 2012, 2013, and indeed 2014 when the world started to get better. I think it's absolutely crucial that when you see a growth phase ahead of you, that you position yourself with capacity within your balance sheets to be able to execute against that.

As we just talked in the previous question, CRH's the value we have in CRH, the profit growth we generate in CRH, 2/3 of that is created directly and indirectly through the M&A process. We buy good businesses, we make them better, and we create synergies. Having the capacity in our balance sheet to do deals is fundamental to the investment thesis of CRH. As I look at the world and look at the fundamentals for construction in our two major markets of North America and Europe, I have to say I feel quite positive about the next 5+ years. The strong support across all those sectors for publicly funded infrastructure. Residential is in a good place, although it may have a little bit of a short-term headwind. I don't see anything else other than cooling there.

Non-res will grow in line with the overall economy. I think it's important to us, if we do come out of a slight slowdown, we know there will be more opportunities to buy quality businesses at that time. We also know our pipeline. I'd like to have the resources and the capability. We have been very progressive with our dividends in recent years. Up to this year, the last two years, our dividend increases have been 15% and 20%. In fact, over the last five years, we have returned $8 billion to our shareholders through dividends and buybacks. That's 30% of our market cap has come back to our shareholders, and so it should. They own the business, and we run the business for them.

At the same time, we've actually invested $15 billion in growth investment and acquisitions over the past five years. That will drive the growth of this business going forward for the next decade. Yet, having done all of that, we still managed to increase the profitability by over 50% in EBITDA terms over that five-year period. We tried to do all of these things, drive returns to our shareholders, show our respect for them by giving them back value with regard to share buybacks and dividends, and also have the capacity to grow our business in the years ahead through M&A and invest within the business to improve our profitability, which we have done.

Cedar Ekblom (Executive Director)

Great. Thanks so much.

Albert Manifold (Group Chief Executive)

Thank you very much indeed.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now take our last question. Please stand by. Your last question comes from the line of Will Jones from Redburn. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Will Jones (Equity Analyst of Construction and Building Materials)

Thank you. Since it's the last question, I might sneak in a couple, if that's okay. The first one was just a quick one. Whether you think that the like-for-like volumes in Americas Materials will grow second half on second half, please. Then the second one was just a more general one, I suppose, when there's a reference earlier to the April investor event more from the sustainability perspective. When we think about what you said on strategy back then and maybe how the world's evolved since, is there anything you would say about how CRH is positioned or the wider strategy? Has anything changed for you since that point, or is it very much more of the same? Thank you.

Albert Manifold (Group Chief Executive)

Hi, Will. A very short answer to your first question.

Will Jones (Equity Analyst of Construction and Building Materials)

Yes, I do expect to see like-for-like volumes grow in the second half of the year in the US. Weather hasn't been exactly brilliant in the first half of the year, even though we've had a good performance, and I would hope to see that. Normalized weather patterns, we would see like-for-like volumes increase in the second half of the year.

Thank you.

Albert Manifold (Group Chief Executive)

Where we saw our business going forward. I suppose I would ask myself four questions in regard to thinking about CRH in this, in the short to medium term, and even longer term. First of all, I'd ask myself, are we in good profitable markets? Well, the answer to the question is, I mean, CRH is focused almost entirely on the United States and Europe. And are these good markets for construction going forward? Well, we all know that they are well-funded with strong demand for publicly funded infrastructure for the next 5+ years. Central and Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and in the U.K., and in particular in the United States, we have never before seen such an unprecedented support from the federal government for infrastructure going forward. Not just roads, but across a wide range of areas.

Now, looking at the whole area of water, technology, communications, all of that area, which we are absolutely right in the sweet spot to supply. We're the largest building materials business in this sector, so we are in the right place to do that. Residential remains strong both in the United States and in Europe, despite the fact they may be cooling so much in the short term. We know that there's been a significant underbuild in housing. In our main market in the United States, where we make 75% of our profitability, they have underbuilt by over 5 million homes over the last number of years. It is gonna take a decade to even try and catch up with that.

Non-residential, we've seen a shift over the last five, six years, even before COVID. It started to appear where we see we're moving away from retail and hospitality, and more and more we're seeing warehousing, distribution centers, hospitals, schools. Again, strong support, not only in terms of the way our world is going, but also in terms of the way the investment is going from business. So are we in good markets? Yes. Are the sub-markets in a good place? Yes, they are. The second question I'd ask myself is this. Are we positioned well to deliver in those markets? Well, we're the largest building materials player in the United States, and we're the largest building materials player in Europe. Now, large doesn't make you better, but just look at the delivery that we show in our presentation today.

Look at Slide 3, which looks at the margin performance. Look at the profit growth that we show later on in the presentation in terms of EBITDA growth, cash growth, and returns. Look what we do with that cash. We have given back a third of our cash to our shareholders, directly and indirectly, of our total market cap over the past five years. We have delivered industry-leading EBITDA growth. Industry-leading cash, industry-leading margins. At the root cause of that is a very differentiated model, which is in and around solutions, which has got decades to run because our world is changing and that we need to develop our business in a more sustainable way, supplying sustainable products and manufacturing our products in a more sustainable way.

The third question I'd ask myself, is there clarity on strategy as to what we're doing? Do our investors, do you, the analysts, understand what CRH are doing? Well, look, you know what we do. You know the bedrock of what we do. We make rocks and blocks. We sell cement and aggregates and asphalt and concrete. That is gonna continue to deliver for CRH for decades ahead. We also know that sustainability is gonna play a larger part in our life.

We've set out that sustainability is at the core of our strategy, not only to decarbonize our production process, not only to increase circularity as we are the largest recycler, not only in the United States, but the largest recycler in our industry in the world, but also by virtue of the fact that we're going to be at the forefront of manufacturing sustainable products that will help build our world and our urban environments in a more sustainable manner. Solutions is very much at the core of that. Are we delivering clarity around that? Yes, as we are, as best we can. It's sometimes a difficult concept to grasp, but the results show it. Something is different when everybody else in the industry is going backwards with regard to margin over the last four quarters, CRH is going ahead.

How does that happen? It's down to the differentiated business model. The last question I would ask myself is, have we got the resources to do that? Well, we have the people because we've been delivering for the last five years, and we'll deliver for the next 15 years. Have we got the money to do that? Well, we've got the strongest balance sheet we have had in the history of the organization, the history of the company, and we are organizing ourselves time and time again to focus more and more on delivering quality products to our customers. I think we've got the experience and the track record. At the end of the day, that's what matters. Don't listen to what people say. Listen and watch what people do.

We stand over our track record for the last five, six, seven years in terms of profit delivery, cash delivery, and returns, and clarity of message going forward. They're the four questions I'd ask myself in terms of looking at the strategy we set out in April, and I'd stand over them again.

Will Jones (Equity Analyst of Construction and Building Materials)

Thank you.

Albert Manifold (Group Chief Executive)

Thanks, Will. Okay, listen, we've gone over our time here, I'm afraid. That's all we have time for today. I want to thank you for your attention. I hope we've managed to answer all of your questions. As always, if you have any follow-up questions, then please feel free to get in touch with our investor relations team. We look forward to talking to you again in November when we provide you with a trading update for the first nine months of the year. Thanks for your time today, and have a good day.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.