CRH - H2 2022

Transcript

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the results presentation for 2022 for CRH. My name is Albert Manifold. I'm the Chief Executive Officer. I'm gonna be joined on stage this morning by Jim Mintern, our Chief Financial Officer, and indeed Randy Lake, our Chief Operating Officer. Together, Jim, Randy, and I are gonna present to you the next 20 minutes or so a short presentation about our results for 2022 and what's going on within our businesses. After that, we're gonna do some Q&A, and we'll be joined on stage by our Head of Investor Relations, Tom Holmes, who's gonna take us through the questions and feed your questions to us. Over another 25 minutes, we hope to answer some of the main questions that you have.

Just if I can look at the running order for today in terms of the presentation. Initially, first up, I'm gonna take you through the basic market conditions that drove our performance as a group and how our group performed as an overall during 2022. I am then gonna ask Randy to join me on stage, Randy's gonna take you through the detail of our trading performance in our two main regions in terms of the United States and Europe. Jim is gonna come and talk you through the financial performance, what resulted from all that trading activity, and indeed our capital allocation strategy during 2022 and our thoughts on capital allocation in 2023 and beyond. Randy's gonna come back and talk then about update you on our revised sustainability ambitions for 2030.

Very important as a core part of value-added solutions. At the back end of the presentations, I'm gonna talk to you about that whole concept, how we're accelerating solutions, which is at the core of our strategy for CRH, and indeed to talk to you about some of the other announcements this morning we made with regard to our listings and indeed our outlook. Let's just look at some of the big themes, the big picture delivery during 2022 for CRH. It was a record year for CRH, very strong growth in sales, profitability, margins, and cash. For me, as an operating individual, the standout performance was the margin performance.

When you look across our peers, look across industry, we managed to advance our margins in the face of really horrific cost increases during the year, and that attests to the fact that our business model in around integrated solutions continues to deliver improved business quality and improved margins. Because of the performance of our businesses, we exited this year with the strongest balance sheet we ever had in CRH. Jim is gonna talk to you further about that and how we intend to deploy that in the years ahead. Specifically with regard to now, we're announcing this morning a 5% increase in dividend, and indeed, Jim will take you through our thoughts around the increase in our share buyback up to $3 billion over the next 12 months.

Of course, around that financial performance were some important things that happened during the course of the last year. We continue to invest in our businesses. We invested about $3.3 billion in M&A across 29 transactions around the world. On top of that, we invested a further $500 million on development CapEx, spending almost $4 billion investing in the future of our business that will reap rewards for the decades to come. We've announced a new organizational structure this morning. No real change within our businesses, but more or less aligning and refining as we do in CRH, aligning and ensuring that we support our solution strategy, which is a winning strategy for CRH.

Randy's gonna talk you through in detail how we have raised our ambitions with regard to sustainability and circularity, and in particular with regard to reduced CO2 emissions in line with the 1.5 degree scenario that was announced this year, and they are now SBTi certified. Finally, I'm gonna talk to you about, as I said to you, how we're recommending this transition to the U.S. primary listing and our logic and our thoughts behind that. Just very briefly, just looking at the numbers for the group before I ask Randy, who's gonna join me on stage in a moment to take you through the detail of the trading performance. I mean, it's great pleasure on behalf of the 80,000 people who work for CRH to present these numbers. Record sales, record EBITDA, record margin.

Again, the margin for me being the standout in addition to the cash performance. CRH is a cash machine. We generate $4.4 billion of cash in 2022. That gives tremendous optionality as we go forward in terms of how we deploy that capital, and we'll talk about that later on. For the moment, let me pass you to Randy, who's joined me here now to take you through the detail of the trading performance of our divisions in 2022. Randy.

Randy Lake (COO)

Thank you, Albert, good morning, everyone. Infrastructure represents our largest exposure across the group. In the United States, the funding backdrop is robust, with demand underpinned by the significant increase in federal funding following the passage of the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which actually provide about 50% increase in federal highway funding alone over the next five years. State budgets, they're strong as well. Here we continue to see good momentum in funding initiatives and to maintain and improve the underlying infrastructure network across the country. In the residential segment, the pace of new build construction eased over the course of the year as a result of rising interest rates and affordability constraints.

We've seen some softening of demand in single-family homes in particular, while activity levels in other segments of the market, such as multifamily, have been strong. The residential remodeling demand has remained resilient, supported by strong household balance sheets and an aging housing stock in need of repair, maintenance, and improvement. Looking ahead, we expect the slowdown in U.S. residential demand to be relatively short and shallow. The long-term fundamentals of the market are very attractive. It's supported by population growth, low inventory levels, and a significant level of underbuild over the last decade. In non-residential, we experienced good levels of activity in our key segments, which include manufacturing, utilities, and energy.

Here we're benefiting from higher levels of onshoring as companies simplify their global supply chains. As well as significant federal investment in clean energy, utilities, and semiconductors following the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS and Science Act. On top of that, significant uplifts in funding provided in the IIJA for water, power, and technology infrastructure. Overall, a really positive demand backdrop. Against an inflationary cost environment, pricing remains supportive, with good momentum across all of our markets. Turning to the performance of our Americas Materials business on slide six, against that backdrop, I'm really pleased with our team's execution in 2022. Despite significant input cost headwinds, particularly in bitumen, diesel, and natural gas, as well as some weather disruptions in parts of the United States, we delivered further profit growth, with total EBITDA 6% ahead of prior year.

That performance really reflects the successful delivery of our end-to-end solutions offering. By combining the breadth of our materials, products, and services, along with our design, innovation, and engineering expertise, we're able to provide a complete solution for our customers right across the construction project life cycle, all the way from design and manufacturing products right through to their installation, maintenance, and ultimately, the recycling of those materials. This removes an enormous amount of complexity for our customers, it really helps us to create a long-term partnership which drives repeat business. Crucially, it allows us to price based on a value-added, full-service offering rather than simply providing base materials alone. We also demonstrated strong commercial discipline and agility to adapt to the inflationary pressures we faced throughout the entire year. Our commercial team secured double-digit price increases across all product categories in 2022.

Together with strong cost control, we're focused on continuing to recover higher input costs to protect and improve our profitability. As we look ahead, I'm also encouraged by the positive momentum in our backlogs, both in volume, but certainly more importantly in margin. Next to Building Products on slide seven, here again, we can see the benefits of our integrated solution strategy coming through in our financial performance. Like-for-like sales growth of 11% translated into an 18% increase in EBITDA and significant margin expansion. You can also see the strong contribution from recent acquisitions coming through with total sales and EBITDA 26% and 52% ahead of prior year.

The strong performance of Building Products reflects really the steps we've taken to strategically reshape and reposition into higher growth opportunities in recent years, focusing on developing market-leading positions in Outdoor Living and critical utility infrastructure. The breadth of our products and services in these areas continues to expand and deepen our customer offering, providing us with a very unique capability to deliver a seamless integrated solution tailored to the specific needs of those individual projects. Our largest acquisition in 2022 was Barrette Outdoor Living, and I'm pleased to report that the integration of the business goes well. Trading to date is very much in line with our expectation, and teams have done a tremendous job delivering on our synergy expectations. Overall, another strong trading performance for Building Products, and we continue to build on that progress in the years ahead.

Now moving across to Europe on slide eight, which represents about 25% of the group's EBITDA. Infrastructure demand continues to be underpinned by government and E.U. funding programs, particularly in the U.K., France, and Poland. Big, important markets for us in this part of the world. Very similar to North America, we've also experienced some softening in the pace of new residential construction in the recent months. Remodeling demand has remained resilient. In non-residential construction, we experienced good demand in subsectors such as warehousing, data centers, and logistics. Overall, a relatively resilient demand backdrop. Against a very challenging and inflationary cost environment, I'm encouraged to see the positive pricing momentum that we've experienced in recent years continuing on ahead. Turning to the trading performance of our Europe Materials business on slide nine.

Despite contending with significant energy cost pressures, our business delivered a good underlying performance, with like-for-like sales and EBITDA 11% and 8% ahead of prior year. Notwithstanding the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, activity levels in the rest of our Central and Eastern European businesses remained resilient, with good delivery from our businesses in Poland and Romania in particular. We experienced a significant currency translation headwind in 2022 due to a stronger US dollar, which resulted in about a $160 million impact on our reported EBITDA. 2022 also marked the fifth consecutive year of positive pricing in Europe, with pricing ahead across all products in all markets. This positive momentum bodes well for us as we enter 2023 and continue to focus on our cost recovery and margin management. Overall, good delivery from our businesses in 2022.

At this point, I'll hand you over to Jim to take you through our financial performance for the year in more detail. Jim?

Jim Mintern (CFO)

Thanks, Randy. Turning now to slide 11 and the key components of our profit delivery in 2022. As you can see, we delivered a strong performance with total EBITDA just over $5.6 billion. The highlight of this slide for me is really the $408 million of organic EBITDA growth, an 8% increase compared to prior year, reflecting resilient demand in North America and Europe, good commercial progress to address the inflationary input cost environment, and the continued benefits of our integrated solution strategy. Acquisitions net of divestments delivered a further $385 million of EBITDA in 2022, reflecting strong contributions from recent acquisitions as we continue to build out our solutions-focused offering in road infrastructure, critical utility, and Outdoor Living.

Finally, to currency translation, where we incurred an adverse currency impact of $168 million at the group level, a significant headwind in 2022 due to a stronger US dollar relative to our other currency exposures. Turning now to slide 12, here you can see how our relentless focus on cash generation and financial discipline further strengthened our balance sheet in 2022. Looking at the key components of this performance, we ended 2021 with a net debt of $6.3 billion. Here you can see the $4.4 billion of operating cash our businesses generated in 2022. That represents approximately an 80% conversion from EBITDA, this has enabled us to continue to invest in our business for further growth while also returning significant amounts of cash to our shareholders through dividends and share buybacks.

We completed a significant amount of portfolio activity during the year, investing $3.3 billion on 29 solution-focused acquisitions. The largest of these was the acquisition of Barrette Outdoor Living for $1.9 billion. In addition, we had a further 28 bolt-on acquisitions which were completed at an average pre-synergy multiple of 8x EBITDA. We also received significant proceeds from divestments which net attacks paid on the profit on disposals and a number of other items resulted in a total inflow of approximately $3.7 billion. We invested approximately $1.5 billion in capital expenditure to support further growth in our existing businesses. We returned $2.1 billion to our shareholders in the form of dividends and share buybacks, demonstrating our commitment to returning cash to our shareholders.

Overall, this resulted in a net debt of $5.1 billion at year-end, representing a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 0.9 times. This is the strongest balance sheet we've ever had in CRH, providing us with significant optionality for further value creation going forward. At this point, I'd like to take a step back and discuss our progressive, disciplined approach to capital allocation. You've heard us say it many times before, every capital deployment decision we make is analyzed and assessed through the lens of maximizing value for our shareholders. As you can see here on slide 13, over the last five years, we've allocated over $20 billion of capital.

We've invested significantly in our businesses over that time, allocating over 60% or just over $12 billion to value accretive M&A and expansionary CapEx projects, investments that will drive further growth and value creation for years to come. We've also returned significant amounts of cash to our shareholders, approximately $8 billion in the form of progressive dividends and share buybacks. What are our expectations for the next five years? Well, when we look at the strength of our business today, our growth profile, the level of cash we're generating, and the strength of our balance sheet, we believe that we will generate financial capacity in the order of $30 billion. To put that in context, that's broadly equivalent to the current market cap today.

This all provides us with very significant optionality for long-term value creation, and I can assure you that we'll remain disciplined and value-focused in the allocation of that capital. We will either invest it for future growth, or we will return it to our shareholders. Turning now to slide 14. As we've discussed, returning cash to shareholders is an embedded part of our capital allocation strategy. Over the last five years, we have returned $4.1 billion in share buybacks alone, or 13% of our share capital. We also have a long track record of progressive dividends, and the 5% increase in our full-year dividend that we are recommending this morning builds on our proud history. We have almost 40 years of dividend growth and stability.

Yet, having allocated all of this capital and having returned all of this cash to our shareholders, a total of $8 billion over the last five years, we now have the strongest balance sheet in our history. I just talked about the $30 billion of additional financial capacity that we expect over the next five years, demonstrating the confidence we have in the outlook for our business and the continued strong cash generation. We have a strong pipeline of growth opportunities in front of us, investments in our existing businesses, as well as acquisitions, and we remain absolutely committed to maintaining our progressive dividend policy. I can reassure you, as CFO of CRH, we remain committed to our strong investment-grade credit rating.

Taking all of this into account and reflecting the strength of our balance sheet and cash generation capabilities, this morning we announced our intention to significantly increase our share buyback program with the return of up to $3 billion over the next 12 months. I'm now gonna hand back to Randy to update you on the progress we are making in our key sustainability focus areas.

Randy Lake (COO)

Thank you, Jim. Turning to slide 16, we've talked before about our commitment to leading the industry on decarbonization. I'm pleased to say that we're raising our ambition even further with a revised target to reduce group-wide carbon emissions by 30% by 2030. Now, this is an absolute target. It's not a relative CO2 per ton target. It covers all of our activities across the group and has been validated by the SBTi to be in line with the 1.5 degree framework. We have detailed bottom-up roadmaps in place across all of our businesses with dedicated teams in place to deliver against those plans. It keeps us on the pathway to achieving our overall ambition of becoming a net zero business by 2050.

This won't be easy, but we're off to a good start, and I'm happy to report that we reduced our Scope 1 and two emissions by 7% in 2022 versus 2021 levels. Great work by the teams. We continue to be committed to playing our part to decarbonize our business and society to protect the world for future generations. We're also continuing to advance our contribution to circularity, as we've outlined here on slide 17. We believe increasing circularity in construction has significant long-term environmental, financial, and societal benefits. For our business, circularity makes perfect sense. By using more recycled materials in construction, we can preserve our own scarce natural resources and prolong the life of our reserves. It also lowers the cost of construction, both for us and for our customers.

Our core materials of cement, aggregate, asphalt, and concrete, they're all 100% recyclable. They can be used again and again, producing equivalent or superior product quality. As you can see on the right-hand side of the slide, we made good progress in 2022. We recycled 42 million tons of material. In fact, we're the number one recycler of any material in the U.S. Nobody else in our industry recycles anywhere near as much as we do. We're the global leader in asphalt recycling. About 25% of every road mile we build in North America is built with recycled materials, and our ambition is to increase that to 50% within the next decade.

It won't be easy, but we continue to work with governments, regulators, and contractors to further develop policies, guidelines, and specifications that promote the use of more recycled materials in construction. We've also made really good progress replacing fossil fuels with alternatives such as recycled waste and biomass. In 2022, alternative fuels represented 36% of the total fuel requirements for our cement plants, making us the global leader in fossil fuel substitution. We're transferring the significant knowledge and technical expertise that we've built over many years of doing this in Europe to our businesses in North America. Now I'd like to hand you over to Albert, who's going to talk to you a little bit about our advancements in terms of our solutions strategy.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Thanks, Randy. I hope you really got a sense there of how we work in CRH. I mean, we had ambitious targets for reducing our emissions to 2030. Again, we revised those upwards again this year. Good to see. I hope you got a sense from both Jim and Randy the detail behind what drove the performance this year. Indeed, how the financial discipline that Jim referred to ensures that we convert those profits into cash for creating value for you, our shareholders. I want to spend two or three minutes now talking about integrated solutions and how that is accelerating our performance within CRH and what it means. Let me just talk a little bit about, you know, why solutions are so important to us, to us as individuals, to our society, and indeed to CRH.

Well, look, there are certain things we know are going to happen in our world. We know the population of the world is going to continue to grow by about 2 billion people, so, to 2050. We know the fact that those 2 billion people is going to increase the urbanization rate to about 70%. We also know the fact that there's a significant backlog of aging infrastructure in Europe and in the United States, and that infrastructure is going to be replaced, renewed, and refreshed. With the growing population and need to repair the infrastructure, there's going to be significant construction growth for people to live, to go to school, to go to work, to live their lives, to move around the world.

We also know that we just cannot continue to produce the harmful emissions and consume the scarce resources that we do in construction at the current pace, because if we do, we're going to destroy this planet. Something must change, and society and regulators and we as individuals are demanding that change. It's up for us, people like us, like CRH, businesses who are important people in the industry, to take the responsibility to help change the way our world is built. That's what solutions are actually about. Let me explain how it works in a practical sense. Just imagine today in some part of the world, they're building a construction project. It starts by somewhere in the world, they're digging, extracting rock from the ground. It could be iron ore, it could be lumber from a forest.

They're taking that basic raw material, and they're providing it, they're processing it, and they're creating something out of it. They're extracting rock. They create stone and aggregates. That stone and aggregates is turned into something else and mixed with something else. It could be turned into cement. It's mixed to create concrete or asphalt. We then take that, and we give it to a manufacturer who gets that raw material and creates a product from it. That product is mass-produced as a standardized mass product, and that product is then transported to the construction site, where it's put together in a very inefficient, labor-intensive way to build construction projects in the world, projects that are designed by other individuals, architects, engineers, and designers, who design back from the front end all the way back. That process has not changed in a century.

It's a very inefficient process. There's lots of waste, there's a lot of emissions, there's a lot of time wasted. It needs to change. It changes by integrating that chain together. That's what Solutions is about. Solutions looks at taking from the front end, what do you want? I want this construction project. I want this building. I want this infrastructure. Listening to what the designers and architects are saying. Putting them in touch with our designers and architects and seeing how we can change the material science of what we process so that it can be less harmful and producing less emissions. We can use more circularity. We can process this in a different way. We can take that basic material and bring and produce products within factory-controlled environments, produce modular construction off-site.

That when it's brought to the construction site, it actually is put together quicker, cheaper, in a cleaner way with less labor. All of this reduces waste, it reduces emissions, it increases circularity. It actually helps to build quicker, cleaner, and better. Quite simply, solutions simplifies the whole construction process, and it lowers costs. Is that it? Well, no, it's not. Solutions is dynamic, it continues to evolve. There are pressures on the system. There are opportunities we see. Bringing innovative products and processes and techniques into the system changes that value chain. It compresses it, and it integrates it more, it connects it more. Promoting more sustainable use of resources is very, very important. Increased circularity is very, very important, but that starts at the front end.

Now, of course, customers are demanding more that we blend materials together to create final products. You can no longer just be a piece in the jigsaw saying, "I'm producing rock, I'm producing cement." Actually, our customers want you to blend in the likes of plastics, composite materials, metal, steel to produce the end product. Of course, we're seeing an increasing awareness of the importance of logistics, internal logistics, and how we transport to the construction site. Then people want to say, "Well, okay, who's gonna maintain the infrastructure? Who's gonna service it? Who has the knowledge to do that?" It's those who produce the materials are the ones who will do that. Quite simply, the manufacturers who have a comprehensive knowledge and a proven capability across materials, products, and services will be the winners in this race.

Where does CRH fit into all of this? Well, we have always had a differentiated strategy in the building materials sector. We have been a materials player, we've been a products player. We provide services. We innovate into high-spec products. We were in distribution. We're at the front end dealing with customers. As Randy has set out for you, we are an industry leader in the area of sustainability, recycling, and innovation. Crucially, we are the number one player in the United States and Europe. That's important is because they are the two most regulated, certified markets in the world in terms of pushing forward increased innovation, increased specifications in how you work, and that forces us, it encourages us, it rewards us to be innovative and to change the way we build our world. That's why CRH is the proven leader in delivering end-to-end solutions.

Proud words, but what does it mean for you, our shareholders? I could have put up 10 slides if I had the time and quite frankly, if I was allowed, but I can only put up one slide. This is our track record across the three most important metrics that I look at in our business in terms of performance. It looks across the last five years, how we do against our peers. You can see profit growth outstrips everybody else. Look at the center column, the margin performance. Every single peer has gone backwards, and yet CRH has advanced at a pace of everybody else. That's because it's about solutions, and it's a proven track record of experienced people delivering solutions. Not just talking about it's delivering it.

The classic financial discipline of CRH is the platform of which we stand on, and we stand here today. We turn those profits into cash, and you can see our cash generation where we turn about $.80 of every dollar of EBITDA into cash, which we use for value creation for you, our shareholders. The beauty of CRH is not just that we have this big concept about solutions. It's actually how we work together. We have two major markets in Europe and the United States. Both are extremely important to us. The European construction markets have the most exacting specifications set out for construction in the world. It advances sustainability at a pace that no one else does at this time across a broad range of metrics, and it is the driver for innovation.

It's not just that the regulators make us specify construction and make us innovate. It rewards us for that. It encourages us for that. A lot of the ideas that we have within our European business, we take those ideas, and we bring them to the most profitable construction market in the world, the United States, where we bring them to scale. The advantage of that is that we get the beauty of the innovation in Europe brought to scale in the United States. Let me give you an example of that. Our Ash Grove Cement business that we bought in 2018. In the four years that we have owned that business, we've doubled the profitability of that business.

Now, of course, the market has been robust in the United States in those four years, and pricing has advanced, but so have costs. The improvement we've seen to double the profitability has largely come about by our ability to transfer the knowledge through 100-150 engineers who came to the U.S. and are still there working on how we process our materials, the types of cement we produce, the increased throughput, and actually how the applications of that cement can be used in a different way. It has completely changed the nature of the way Ash Grove operates, and in fact, it's changing the nature of the way cement operates in the United States.

Likewise, actually, 25 years ago when I started in CRH, we had paving products in Belgium and the Netherlands that were taken across to the U.S. and started a small business called Belgard Paving. That now has become APG in CRH and is one of our largest, most profitable, and fastest-growing businesses across CRH in Outdoor Living across the United States. Five years ago, that business came back to Europe, into Eastern Europe, and it's the platform upon our paving business, our Outdoor Living business in Central and Eastern Europe. Likewise, our infrastructure business in the U.S. is coming back into Europe to...

It's got the challenges of the South and West of the United States in terms of building out infrastructure, those same challenges are being brought over to Central and Eastern Europe, and we're looking to provide solutions for those businesses there. That interchange, that interconnection, that connection between those two businesses is vital towards driving solutions in CRH. As I said before, it's not static. It continues to change. Of course, we focus on materials and products and our services, but more and more our design skills, our innovation, our planning, our technology, our logistics, all of these are coming in to change the way solutions are being delivered. It is becoming a connected virtual circle, and those who connect the business together to provide that simplification of the whole process is actually changing the way construction projects are being delivered.

It makes sense that we do everything we can to ensure we align ourselves to support the solution strategy. That's why this morning we announced a reorganization. It is just really further aligning and refining our organization as we do to ensure that we support solution strategy going forward. I'm joined by Jim now, who's gonna take you through some further thoughts on our organization strategy as we go forward. Jim.

Jim Mintern (CFO)

Moving to slide 26. As we continue to adapt and align our business to the changing needs and future growth opportunities in our industry, we are now transitioning to a new organizational structure for the group. Effective from the 1st of January this year, we will report under two divisions, Americas and Europe. Within each of these divisions, we will have two new segments. Firstly, Materials Solutions, which comprises our Essential Materials and Road Solutions. Secondly, Building Solutions, which comprises our Outdoor Living and our Building & Infrastructure Solutions. This represents the natural evolution of our strategy, providing us with the opportunity to accelerate the development of integrated solutions in both the U.S. and Europe. Providing greater integration, cross-selling, and cooperation between our businesses, and positioning CRH for the next decade of growth in sustainable construction.

Creating value for our customers and higher profits, margins, cash, and crucially, returns for our shareholders. Further information on our new reporting structure is available in the appendix accompanying our presentation this morning, and we also plan to provide further financial information in advance of our April trading update.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Thanks, Jim. Just wanna look now this morning at, well, a further part of our announcement, which was our listing considerations and a recommendation that we move our primary listing to North America. When the financial crisis ended in 2013, 2014, it was clear that four or five years of when there was very low levels of construction in the US and Europe led to pent-up demand. We saw significant growth across our European and U.S. markets, particularly U.S. markets in the run-up from 2014 up to 2020, 2021. That has meant that over that period of time, from 10 years ago when we had 50% of our profits generated in the United States, to today, where 75% of our EBITDA is generated across North America. Given what we're seeing ahead of us, that's gonna continue to grow.

We believe it'll be close to 90% over the next decade or so. The U.S. is expected to be a key driver of growth for CRH as we go forward. What's driving that spurt on? How is that gonna keep driving itself on? Well, it's a unique complement of events coming together. First of all, I refer to the global financial crisis. That has meant that there was an underbuilt-in residential in the United States. Today, as we stand here, there's an underbuild, the need of about 5 million homes to satisfy the needs that are there. The population of the U.S. is gonna grow by 30 million people over the next 10 years. Those people are gonna need homes to live in. That is gonna drive U.S. construction and residential going forward for the next decade at least.

Secondly, with regard to non-residential, Randy referred to it earlier, we've had a good core business coming through in data centers and warehouses as the world changes. On top of that now, for the last year or so with the changing geopolitics, we are seeing an increased level of onshoring and reshoring of critical manufacturing back into the United States. It's not just in the Sun Belt. It's actually coming across the Mid-Atlantic and across the Midwest, which is welcome to see in that part of the world. That is gonna continue to drive further growth in non-residential expenditure. Critically, it's infrastructure. We have three major federal support acts that have come to fore in the last 12 months or so. We've got the IIJA, we have the Inflation Reduction Act, and we have the CHIPS and Science Act.

Those three acts together provide unprecedented support that's gonna drive infrastructure spend across the United States for the next decade. It leads us to believe not only that, but we're in a fantastic market position. We can see, looking at those three end-use markets, that there are significant commercial and operational reasons for us to relist in the United States because it will give us higher organic growth opportunities. In addition to that, relisting in the United States will give us higher inorganic growth opportunities. Those two combined will allow us to advance at a faster pace our integrated solution strategy across the U.S. going forward, which will be a key driver of growth for our business.

We will be communicating directly with shareholders on a face-to-face basis over the next six to eight weeks. We will update the market further at our update, our trading update, which will be in around our AGM at the end of April. If I can just briefly turn to outlook. I'm not gonna repeat what has been said before. We talk about the United States in terms of infrastructure is strong going forward into 2023 and beyond for the reasons we just set out. Non-residential is in pretty good shape. We're gonna see an increased onshoring and reshoring of activities here, which is gonna continue to drive that market. U.S. residential is a one-way bet.

Okay, we may have a speed bump over the next six to eight months with regard to interest rates. Slowly but surely, the need for housing is going to overtake. That will be a key driver for growth in CRH in the next decade. Europe, a crucially important part of our business going forward. Central and Eastern Europe is a jewel in our crown. We're the largest building materials player there, a market that is 70% of the size of the total US construction market. It just happens to be 25 years behind the US construction market. There's decades of growth and profitability ahead for us there. Our Western European business. We have significant market positions in a market that needs significant investment in infrastructure and repair and maintenance.

Of course, crucially, that is the center for innovation and design and new technologies that we can take and bring out across our group in the years ahead. Pulling that all together, specifically for regard to 2023, you can see we have a clear growth strategy in vogue at the moment. We're delivering against that. Integrated solutions is the differentiating factor that's delivering the higher growth, more profits and more cash. Of course, it all starts with being best-in-class operators. Never ever forget that. The pennies matter in our industry. We will continue to lead on sustainability, on decarbonization, and crucially, more and more on circularity and innovation. Of course, we will continue to reshape and reposition our portfolio. It makes sense to do that.

Also in a growing business where you've got the solution strategy evolving, we will be adding onto the edges of that as we have done in the last 24, 36 months. No matter what we do, you can be guaranteed, as Jim set out, the financial discipline that's been at the core of CRH for 50 years will remain. We have the strongest balance sheet in the history of CRH. It didn't happen by accident. That will mean that we will lead the industry in terms of cash conversion and cash generation. As Jim mentioned, that leads us to believe over the course of the next five years, we will have more than $30 billion of financial capacity to spend for our shareholders in terms of internal investments, M&A, and rewarding our shareholders themselves.

With regard specifically to 2023, against that backdrop, we think we're in for a good year and another year of continued progress for CRH. Okay. Look, we've come to the end of the presentation part of this morning. I'll now be joined on stage by Tom Holmes, our Head of Investor Relations, and Jim and Randy have come back to join me on stage, and we're going to go to the questions I know that you've been sending in. I'll pass it over to Tom now. Tom.

Tom Holmes (Head of Investor Relations)

Thanks, Albert. Good morning, everyone. There was a lot in that, we've certainly got plenty to talk about. Lots of questions here, as Albert said. Please keep them coming. We'll try to get through as many as we possibly can. Naturally, there's a lot of overlap and recurring themes. I'm gonna try and group them here as best we can, make sure we have time to get through all of the key topics. Let's start with trading. Albert, first to you. Could you speak to activity levels and margin performance in Q4 and what you're seeing in early 2023?

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Okay. Maybe I'll just take that question first. I might pass to Randy and Jim for their comments. Maybe I'll just take quarter four last year, 2022, and ask Randy and Jim. Randy, you might take the U.S., and Jim, you might just talk a comment on Europe. Look, we finished out the year quite strongly in 2022. It was a very challenging year. Actually, weather didn't really help us actually in quarter four. Actually, we had a record performance in quarter four, and again, that's the solutions continuing to deliver on. What I liked about quarter four was that actually our margin moved ahead in quarter four. We had a good first half of the year. We had a challenging quarter three, quarter four we moved ahead.

I often talk about how we get behind or get ahead on pricing. I think we got behind on pricing in quarter three because costs moved on it very quickly and we couldn't price up. Actually, in quarter four, we started to go ahead, and I think it sets us up well for this year. Good activity levels as we finish out 2022 and good margin progression. Specifically with regard to 2023, Randy, you might just take it, the Americas.

Randy Lake (COO)

Yeah. Maybe just to build on that a little, 'cause I think you have to look at Q4 in terms of some of that momentum. You know, we're coming out of Q4 in a relatively positive pricing environment. The ability to manage the cost profile in Q4 kind of translating into good pricing as we begin to enter into the season of 2023 is encouraging. That's a good base to start from. In terms of kind of the individual market segments, I talked a little bit about the res market already. We are seeing a bit of a slowdown in terms of single family. You know, it's pockets based upon the geographies that we cover. Again, the remodeling, the RMI work remains pretty resilient.

I think net-netter should be a relatively positive picture for the U.S. as in terms of overall res. That non-res space, we talked a bit about maybe a transition that's happening there from some of the data warehousing logistics into more of that onshoring, chip manufacturing, some very large projects that are in the pipeline there. Overall, it's gonna be relatively steady as we go into to 2023. It's certainly positive from an infrastructure standpoint. The quantum of activity that's taken place both from the federal and the state level that translates down to those local markets, early indications are we have a nice positive momentum as we begin to kick off the spring season.

Yeah. In terms of Europe, Tom, we had a strong Q4 in Europe, you know, despite some very significant headwinds, right, in terms of Ukraine, in terms of FX and in terms of inflation. We talked about it last November in the trading update. We saw that kind of pricing momentum coming out of Q3, and it built month on month as we came to the end of 2022 and kind of exited 2022 with good pricing momentum. Also, across our businesses where we play mainly in Europe, we had a good EU, we had good infrastructural underpin in terms of activity levels, and also a lot of self-help measures as well going on across the business as well. A good strong finish in Q4 in Europe.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

I'd say, look, it's a difficult time of the year. We get asked this question every year at this time of the year. It's difficult to say because it's very early days. When we look at our backlogs, we look at our order books, look at our sense of the business, I look at the momentum that's been coming through from quarter four, it certainly looks good in terms of the fundamentals and activity levels. Pricing, that moving ahead of the cost curve and pricing is an important part for us. That combined with our solutions strategy, I think that bodes well for this year.

Tom Holmes (Head of Investor Relations)

Okay. Just maybe picking up on the funding backdrop for infrastructure and non-residential, Randy, we hear a lot about the IIJA. Could you talk a bit more about what you're seeing there? Jim, in Europe, where specifically are we seeing those EU funds being deployed?

Randy Lake (COO)

When you think about the infrastructure funding environment, I think we probably go back to comments we made at the middle part of last year in regards to when we anticipated seeing dollars actually make their way to the bid table. We said it would be kind of early 2023, that's what's happening now. We're beginning to see work, individual projects come through, which is a combination of IIJA, but also some of the new initiatives that the states have taken on. That bidding activity would reflect kind of the anticipated levels that we thought we would see, which is a positive.

The part of the IIJA Act which sometimes goes unnoticed is, you know, the significant amount of money that's spent or invested for water, energy, and telecoms. That really we, again, are seeing that in our backlogs in our infrastructure products business. It's the combination of our products and services that allow us to really penetrate some of the significant markets we're in. When you think about the total dollars, greater than 20% of the IIJA funding is gonna go into our top five states, the likes of Florida, Texas, Utah, so forth, up in the Pacific Northwest. I think we're well-positioned for the dollars that are coming our way.

Then maybe if you, if you move into the non-res, the Inflation Reduction Act, along with the CHIPS and Science Act as well, that's a major investment in terms of some of the underlying infrastructure, that onshoring of semiconductors, maybe some of the battery plants that we're seeing, and I think Albert talked about it even in the parts of the country in the Midwest where we have really nice positions. The combination of our IPG, APG, and materials business in the Ohio, Michigan area, we're seeing quite a robust level of activity there.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Actually, really we should draw that out is this, that combination of those three businesses coming together in that area, in this specific area of non-res is really starting to come to the fore, be a unique driver. We talk a lot about infrastructure and federally funded infrastructure. Actually, that work coming through is gonna be an important, a growing important part of our business.

Tom Holmes (Head of Investor Relations)

Mm-hmm.

Jim Mintern (CFO)

Yeah, and in terms of Europe, Tom, if you look firstly maybe there are, you know, fast-growing Central and Eastern European business, particularly countries view the main markets for us, kind of Poland, Romania, into Hungary and Slovakia. These are countries which are historically very significant infrastructural deficits in terms of road, water, energy, health, and education. There are multi-year EU funding programs, you know, to address that deficit. We're just starting out in those programs, and that has provided a very good volume backdrop to that, to that region. You look at some of the other main markets for us in Europe as well. In France, where we play in France up in the northeast, you know, you have the Grand Paris project.

You also have the Seine-Nord Canal starting out, and then you have the Olympics as well, which again is kind of providing a good volume backdrop to us. In the U.K., the largest infrastructure project in Europe, High Speed 2. We're the preferred supplier on that project, and also the Thames Tideway project. You know, a good infra underbuild across our main markets in Europe.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Again, the common theme that runs across both the European and US businesses and in the non-res, and again, that non-res onshoring is starting to happen in Europe again. It's that complex, large, difficult construction is perfect for solutions because it's into modular construction, it's offsite, it's simplifying. People just want the project in place quick at the right pace, the right speed, and the right quality. It plays to our strengths, that area.

Tom Holmes (Head of Investor Relations)

Okay. Randy, one here, U.S. backlogs and order books, what are they telling you about trading momentum across the business right now? Actually, Jim, same to you on Europe actually.

Randy Lake (COO)

Yeah, I mentioned it in the core of the presentation. You know, backlogs would reflect the increase in activity produced by the IIJA as well as the Inflation Reduction Act. Backlogs are strong. They're up over last year volume, which is important for sure, but probably more indicative of the positive nature is the margins in that backlog. It's good to see. I mean, to me, that indicates kind of a good distribution in the quantum of work across the U.S. That's encouraging. That would be reflected not just in our, you know, obviously we're the largest road builder in the country, that's reflective there, but also our Infrastructure Products Group would have very similar backlogs with improving margins.

Some of the order book, maybe something we keep an eye on for sure in the springtime is really how is our APG business doing with our core customers and our retail customers, the likes of The Home Depot and Lowe's, as well as the pro channel. You know, the early sell-through is positive. So that's good to see. We'll keep an eye on that as the year progresses for sure. Early indications are we have positive momentum in that sector as well.

Jim Mintern (CFO)

Yeah. When we look at Europe, Tom, I mean 2022 was a challenging year for Europe, and I don't expect the same in 2023. I just talked about the kind of good infra underpin that's there for a lot of the activity we have across our main markets. You know, that's offsetting some of that residential softness we see. You know, we do have an improving energy backdrop. As I said, we've got that pricing momentum coming out of Q3, Q4, heading into 2023, optimistic in terms of pricing. In fact, this will be the sixth consecutive year in Europe of good price progression.

Speaker 4

Albert, on margin, could you expand on the 2022 performance? Where can margins go from here? Is this a peak for the business?

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Well, is it a peak? I get asked that question every year, the answer to that question is no, and it'll be better next year. The answer to that question is no, it'll be better next year. Not because of any great foresight. I have a crystal ball, but I can see the way solutions are evolving. If you could just go back and look and see where solutions started a number of years ago, a decade ago now at this stage, it started really in our Road Solutions business in North America. That used to be just a plain aggregates business, then we started to turn those aggregates into asphalt.

In providing the asphalt, the customer said to us, "Well, more and more, could you provide the off-ramps, the on-ramps, the bridges, the culverts?" All of which we do. Not only that, "Will you maintain the road for me in terms of marking it, cleaning it, all of that stuff, and sort of patching it?" All of that is part of the solution. It started out 10 years ago, and we never envisaged it would be this. Our customers pulled it in that way. If I look at the way our solutions business is evolving across our APG business, our IPG business, across some of our other business that we're working on, I can see more and more building out from those core platforms in terms of profitability.

I look at some of the deals we did, of course, last year. Look at the Rinker deal. Look at the in terms of Texas, in terms of adding the pipe business to our downstream platform businesses in Texas. I look at the Hinkle deal in terms of the road resurfacing business. I look at the Calstone business, the APG business in California. I look at the biggest deal we did last year, Barrette, and how that adds to our APG portfolio. All of these are changing the very nature of CRH. We talk about repositioning. We talk about reshaping. This is active repositioning and reshaping. It doesn't just change what we supply to our customers, it changed the profits of our business. It changed the margins.

It's behind that 500 basis point margin increase that we talked about today. I don't think they're at the end of the margin story. I think we're only just starting that story at the moment. It'll continue to evolve, and we'll update our markets as it becomes clear to us.

Tom Holmes (Head of Investor Relations)

Okay. Jim, one for you. Big year for M&A, as we've talked about. Big step up in the buyback also. Could you talk more generally as to how you think about capital allocation?

Jim Mintern (CFO)

It, you know, we exited 2022, as we said, with the strongest balance sheet ever at 0.9x net debt to EBITDA. That's unusually low for us. We, you know, we have communicated that through the cycle, that, you know, we're comfortable with net debt to EBITDA up to 2x. That's really a testament to the very strong cash generation and the cash conversion. What's been driving that is that we're really beginning to, you know, benefit now today from, you know, a lot of the portfolio repositioning that we've been doing for the last six, seven years. We fundamentally have a structurally better business today, which is growing faster, delivering that margin increase year-on-year, and that's coming through in terms of cash generation and cash conversion.

That came through in terms of the strong net debt figure at the end of the year. In 2022, that enabled us to invest $3.8 billion in terms of total, between M&A activity and expansionary CapEx. We also returned $2.2 billion to our shareholders, right? $1.2 billion in a share buyback and $1 billion in dividends. Indeed, when you go back over the last five years, we've allocated $20 billion in terms of expansion in M&A activity and cash return to our shareholders. That all contributed to that very strong cash position and net debt position at the end of the year.

What we've decided to do is really to reward our shareholders who supported us for the last five, six years, supported the strategy and enabled us to arrive at this strong position. We announced this morning the increase in the share buyback for the next 12 months, starting in April, of up to $3 billion. That's a real testament to how we see the future growth opportunities of the business, the future margin expansion, and the future cash conversion.

Tom Holmes (Head of Investor Relations)

Just to follow up on that, Jim. The increase in buyback, does that signal any change in appetite around M&A, and how is the pipeline?

Jim Mintern (CFO)

No, absolutely not, Tom. No. I mean, you know, we still have a very strong mandate to grow the business. We, you know, 2022, we spent $3.3 billion. It was our third biggest year in terms of M&A. We have that strong balance sheet. You look at our core businesses, our core markets. We still operate in a very fragmented business in the U.S. that, you know, the top 10 producers in U.S. account for less than 30% of the business. We still have geographic white spots, and we've been beginning to see, you know, a real acceleration and build-out of our solutions business in Europe. I think certainly that strong balance sheet gives us that optionality and capability to take advantage of those value-accretive deals into the future.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

I'd say, Tom, I mean, all of us have been around a long time, and we've all seen recessions. We've all seen recoveries. We all know where we are. We're at the start of a strong growth phase across both of our major markets. My experience, my knowledge tells us now is the time where you can be progressive on M&A because it's not just what you buy or what you pay for it's when you buy it that's crucially important. I know that you will have seen after 2013, 2014, the global financial crisis came to an end. What did we do? We drove M&A for a sustained period for four or five years, and we drove value M&A. As Jim says, that's what delivers the cash, the profits this morning. We didn't do it in 2022.

We did it from 2012 to 2021. That's what delivered the profitability. Our job now in doing M&A is actually to ensure that we capitalize on the opportunity. We have the capacity, we have the ambition, and we've got the capability to do that. Really, it's within our business to drive M&A during these good times because that's how you can really drive growth going forward for decades ahead.

Tom Holmes (Head of Investor Relations)

Albert, just looking here at the reorganization of the business. Can you give a bit of color as to the thinking behind it and the benefits you see for the business?

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Reorganization? Yeah. Okay. We are changing the way we report. We're changing the way we connect our business within CRH. In fact, really what it's doing, it's crystallizing what actually has been happening within our business as we speak. I mean, more and more, I refer to just take the Road Solutions as an example. Well, within CRH, different companies provide the road, different companies provide the on-ramps, the off-ramps, the bridges, the culverts. We've got one customer, and the more we make sure the connection between our business internally represents a unified approach to that customer in terms of understanding what they need, their design skills, their engineering needs, and how we can back that in terms of not only how we supply the products, but the integrated nature of the way we supply the products, the better it is for us.

That's what this reorganization is about. It's about aligning our organization, our workflow, what we do, with our strategy of delivering complete end-to-end solutions for our customers. It doesn't change anything with CRH. In fact, it reinforces our M&A strategy, reinforces our growth strategy in terms of building out and offering more and more to our customers.

Tom Holmes (Head of Investor Relations)

Okay. Okay, great. Actually another one on this. Does the reorganization change your M&A strategy at all? Do you think about that differently as a result?

Albert Manifold (CEO)

I just said it. It doesn't think about it. Actually, it absolutely gives us more opportunity. If I look at some of the deals we've done over the last. I mean, the Brett deal is a quasi-step out into a new space for us. Actually more and more, we were pulled there by our customers. Our major customers want us to get involved in the fencing area. More and more we're being pulled into areas of dealing with plastics, composite materials, because that's becomes important to our customers in terms of how we provide the solution. Will it change it? No, because the platforms are hugely important. Our core businesses are our core businesses. The regions that we're in are good. We'll expand those core regions as they grow.

What it will do is it will pull us into new areas in terms of not only the products, but design skills and engineering, which is what the innovation fund is actually all about, looking at the very edges where we see the opportunity. It's advanced evolution of the M&A model rather than changing in any way, shape, or form.

Tom Holmes (Head of Investor Relations)

Okay, just changing tack here a little. Albert, no surprise, a lot of questions here on the U.S. listing.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Mm-hmm.

Tom Holmes (Head of Investor Relations)

Could you elaborate on the thought process there and what benefits you expect it to bring across the business?

Albert Manifold (CEO)

I spoke about this morning. Excuse me. I spoke about this morning, given what we're seeing in North America, given the increasing importance of North America to us, it makes eminent sense to us to look and say, "Well, actually, where are we best listed?" It's something we've kept under review. We constantly reshape our thinking, our portfolio. We challenge ourselves, and we've always told you we keep our listing under review. Given what we're seeing with regards to the opportunity in North America with regard to infrastructure, res and non-res for the next decade, for us it makes perfect sense that we relist our primary listing to the United States because we see significant commercial and operational benefits in doing so for organic growth alone.

For inorganic growth opportunities, having a primary listing in the U.S., again, further enhances that growth opportunities. Particularly as we look at enhancing and developing our solution strategy, which is a winning strategy in the best and most profitable construction market in the world. This is what we should do. It's our job to communicate those facts to our shareholders. That's what's behind this. Nothing else. There's no comment on Europe, no comment on the U.S. It's the right thing to do for our businesses. Then we'll talk to our shareholders in the coming weeks to explain that, why is that the case.

Tom Holmes (Head of Investor Relations)

Related one here, Albert, maybe sticking with you. In light of the reorganization and the U.S. listing, could this be seen as a first step towards some form of separation of the group?

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Yeah. Look, again, if you look at the slide I gave this morning, deliberately talking about how the importance of Europe is and the importance of what we do in innovation in Europe and bringing it to the U.S. Look, maybe Jim, I'll ask you just... I mean, you have a comment, and Randy as well. You're both colleagues of mine here. You see this. You live this every day. Jim, you...

Jim Mintern (CFO)

Tom, I think on any, on any proper analysis, you know, it doesn't make any sense, you know, to talk about a breakup of the group. You know, this CRH as a group was put together over 50 years ago, right? It operates in 29 countries, and it's a fully integrated business. You know, if you're going to look at splitting up CRH, it would result in significant cost first. Also be complex. It'd be very timely, and there'd be very significant dis-synergies running into many billions of dollars from that perspective. I think for me, when you look at that time factor as well, that would be a huge distraction factor right now when we have such a period of opportunity ahead of us.

You look at Europe, what we talk about, I mean, Central Eastern Europe is one of the fastest growing parts of CRH for the last five, six years. You know, when you look at the, you know, Europe in its totality, there's very significant opportunity for us to build out our solutions-based business in Europe, transferring some of that knowledge that we've been building out in the U.S. back into Europe. Albert talked about it earlier. No, that just doesn't make sense.

Randy Lake (COO)

I think one of the words that Albert just used, which actually resonates, always has resonated with me, is the connected nature of our business. That relates to serving our customer, making sure that we have the right pieces of our portfolio to be able to address the future needs, it also has to do with kind of how we operate and maximizing the operational performance of our businesses. You think about how far ahead Europe is in It's a very regulated construction market from a sustainability standpoint. It is kind of a window to the future for the U.S., we use a lot of what's happening in Europe as a means to get ahead of coming trends in the U.S.

I think that's a competitive advantage and to use that kind of capability and technical skills, and I know Albert already talked about it, but, you know, the light of kind of operational performance, I mean, you know, you double the profitability of Ash Grove in four years, that, you know, I'm sure we would have made progress over the years. It wouldn't have happened in four years had we not used all the experience and the time and resources from Europe to come over not only just to teach, but to be embedded and to accelerate the operational performance. That, to me, is a. It's always. Operational focus has always been a core focus of CRH, but those are tangible, real examples.

You could talk about all kind of other examples, going from IPG, APG, back into Europe. I mean, there's... That's real value that's brought to the underlying performance.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

I think that's the point, Randy, is, I mean, Jim is right to highlight the significant cost if we were to separate. I mean, I'm aware of those costs. It's very significant. I'm an opportunities guy, and I would think, I mean, there would no be no Ash Grove. There would be no APG story in the U.S. if it wasn't for the skills we transferred across. It's not just looking back. What about the Ash Grove of tomorrow? What about the APG or the IPG of tomorrow? Why deny ourselves that opportunity? We have knowledge and skills. They're the same markets, but they're different, and they're driven by different things. The ability, the unique ability, no one else has that capability across the breadth of products that we have. For me, I'm looking up the curve.

I'm looking for the opportunity to grow, and to grow profitability. Together, the opportunities are greater.

Tom Holmes (Head of Investor Relations)

Okay. A number of questions here around the, again, U.S. listing, the mechanics of it. Jim, could you add any further detail on things like timeline, shareholder approval, index inclusion?

Jim Mintern (CFO)

Yeah. Tom, we're going to now head into a period of up to six weeks of, you know, engagement with our shareholders, where we talk this first with our shareholders, quite rightly with our shareholders first. You know, we're not going to get into timelines now. Let's have that period of interaction, engagement with our shareholders, and we give an update at the end of April as part of our trading update.

Tom Holmes (Head of Investor Relations)

Okay. Thanks. Just conscious we're a little tight on time here, Jim. Couple of quick ones here if you don't mind. CapEx guidance for 2023, tax rate same, and maybe scope effect from acquisitions.

Jim Mintern (CFO)

Yeah. For CapEx, I think it's good to guide kind of $1.6 billion-$1.7 billion. In terms of scope, the impact in 2023 of the acquisitions that we undertook in 2022, should be a positive about $150 million. The third one again, Tom, was?

Tom Holmes (Head of Investor Relations)

Scope effect for acquisitions.

Jim Mintern (CFO)

Scope was about $150 million. Yeah, I think there was one more.

Tom Holmes (Head of Investor Relations)

There were CapEx, tax rate.

Jim Mintern (CFO)

Oh, tax. Sorry. Tax rate, I think, for 2023 should guide around effective tax rate for 2023 of about 22%.

Tom Holmes (Head of Investor Relations)

Perfect. Okay, final one to you, Albert, on outlook. You mentioned a year of progress. How do we interpret that for the year ahead?

Albert Manifold (CEO)

early season, I'm not gonna be boxing into any corner here. I've been very clear. The fundamentals in our two main markets are very strong. We're well-funded. We've a clear plan for performance improvement this year. We have a very successful solutions strategy that continues to be executed. It's a multi-year strategy. It's not a 2023 issue. It's a 2023 to 2033 issue. Where the end of that is, I don't know, but I don't see it anytime soon. I think we're in a good place. Our end use markets are solid. We're the number one player in Europe and the U.S. We know where we're at. We've a job to do. We're here this morning talking about this because we need to tell you about 2022, but quite frankly, all our minds are on 2023 and beyond.

It is going to be another good year for CRH. The extent of that progress will become clearer as we report to you later on this year. Okay, I'm getting wound up behind the camera here. We're about 2 or 3 minutes over limit. I want to thank you all for your attention this morning. As always, we make ourselves available through the IR team for any further questions you might have. Until the next time we update you, which I think is around the AGM at the end of April, until then, stay safe, and talk to you then.