CRH - Q3 2022 TU

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the CRH plc November 2022 trading update conference call. For the duration of the call, you will be on listen only. You may submit your question at any point during the call. Please press star one and then 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 now be Mr. Albert Manifold.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Good morning, everyone. Albert Manifold here, CRH Group Chief Executive, and you're all very welcome to our conference call and webcast presentation, which accompanies the release of our trading update this morning. Joining me on the call is Jim Mintern, our Group CFO, David Dillon, Executive Vice President, and Tom Holmes, Head of Investor Relations. Over the next 25 minutes or so, Jim and I will take you through some of the main points of this morning's announcement, highlighting the key drivers of our trading performance for the first 9 months of the year, as well as providing you with an indication of our expectations for the year as a whole. Based on the visibility we have at this moment in time, we'll also share our thoughts on some of the trends we're seeing across our markets as we look ahead to 2023.

Afterwards, we'll be available to take any questions you may have, and all told, we should be done in about 45 minutes. First, on slide 1, I'd like to take a moment to mention a few of the key highlights from this morning's statement. From a trading perspective, I'm pleased to report that our business has delivered further growth in sales, EBITDA, and margin during the first nine months of the year. Total group sales of $24.4 billion were 13% ahead, reflecting resilient underlying demand across North America and Europe. This translated into EBITDA of $4.2 billion, 14% ahead, and further progress in our margin. A good performance in the context of a challenging and inflationary cost environment.

As a result of our continued focus on maintaining strong financial discipline, I'm pleased to report that as we sit here today, CRH has one of the strongest balances in its history, and Jim will expand on that in more detail shortly. Active portfolio management and the efficient allocation of our capital are core components of how we create value for our shareholders, and it has been a very active year in that regard. In the year to date, we have invested $3 billion on 21 solution-focused acquisitions, reallocating the proceeds from the divestment of our Building Envelope business to further develop our integrated solution strategy in the areas of road infrastructure, critical utility infrastructure, and outdoor living. In addition, our ongoing share buyback program is on track to return approximately $1.2 billion in 2022.

Looking ahead to the remainder of the year, based on the current momentum in our business, I'm pleased to say we are confirming our previous guidance and expect to deliver full-year group EBITDA of approximately $5.5 billion, well ahead of the prior year and representing another year of progress for CRH. Turning to slide two, before taking you through our divisional trading performances, I will briefly outline our thoughts on the market backdrop and trading environment across our major markets over the course of the year so far. Despite some economic uncertainties and inflation cost pressures, overall construction demand in North America and Europe remains resilient. Infrastructure, our largest end market, continues to be underpinned by increasing levels of government funding across our markets.

In residential, we've seen an easing in the pace of new build construction activity across parts of North America and Europe as a result of rising interest rates. Remodeling demands, however, remain stable, supported by high home equity values and an aging housing stock in growing need of repair, maintenance, and improvement. For non-residential, we continue to experience good demand in our key segments, including manufacturing facilities, data centers, and critical utility infrastructure. These are typically large, complex construction projects that fit very well with our capability to deliver fully integrated bespoke solutions to our customers. Turning now to our divisional trading performances, at first to Americas Materials on slide three. Our business delivered sales and EBITDA growth of 18% and 8% respectively during the first nine months of the year.

A good performance against a challenging input cost environment and some weather disruption impacting our operations in certain regions of the United States during the third quarter of the year. Strong commercial management continues to underpin positive pricing momentum across all product lines. Together with different cost control, we remain focused on recovering higher input costs to protect our profitability. As we look ahead to the remainder of the year, I'm encouraged by the positive momentum in our backlogs, which are now beginning to see the benefits of the uplift in U.S infrastructure funding. Overall, another good performance from Americas Materials, which continues to be underpinned by the benefits of our integrated end-to-end solution strategy, delivering more value to customers and our business.

Next, to the performance of our Europe Materials business on slide 4, which overall was impacted by some softer activity levels during the third quarter of the year, particularly in the residential segment, as well as adverse currency translation effects. Against a challenging and volatile energy cost environment, I'm encouraged to see positive pricing momentum accelerating across all products during the third quarter as we continue to focus on cost recovery and margin management. In Western Europe, our businesses in the U.K., France, and Ireland continue to benefit from solid demand in infrastructure.

Despite the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, the rest of our Eastern European businesses remain resilient with good delivery from our businesses in Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Slovakia. Overall, our 9-month like-for-like sales and EBITDA were up 13% and 6% respectively, a good underlying performance in the context of significant energy cost pressures and the impact of the conflict in Ukraine on our operations in that market. Moving now to slide 5 and to Building Products, which continues to experience positive growth trends in utility infrastructure and outdoor living solutions. Our Infrastructure Products business delivered a robust performance, with 9-month sales and EBITDA well ahead of prior year periods.

This business continues to benefit from increasing demand for value-added products and solutions that protect, connect, and transport vital utilities such as water, energy, and technology infrastructure in North America and Europe, an area where we see significant opportunities for further growth going forward. Against a stable demand environment in residential RMI, our Architectural Products business also delivered further growth, benefiting from the steps we have taken in recent years to provide a complete offering of industry-leading outdoor living solutions to professional and retail customers. Overall, 9-month like-for-like sales were 12% ahead, while EBITDA increased by 17%, reflecting good operating leverage and further margin expansion.

You can also see the strong contribution from recent acquisitions coming through as we continue to develop our integrated solutions offerings in the area of outdoor living and critical utility infrastructure, with total sales and EBITDA 27% and 57% ahead respectively during the first nine months of the year. At this point, I'll hand you over to Jim to take you through our recent acquisition activity and year-end balance sheet expectations.

Jim Mintern (CFO)

Thanks, Albert. Good morning, everyone. We've completed a significant amount of portfolio activity in the year to date, reallocating the pro-proceeds from the divestment of our Building Envelope business to support further growth and future value creation for our shareholders. So far this year, we have invested $3 billion in 21 acquisitions. The largest of these was Barrette Outdoor Living for $1.9 billion, representing a multiple of less than 8x EBITDA after the savings and synergies we have identified to date. I'm pleased to report that the integration of this business is progressing well with some good early wins on synergy delivery. Trading to date has been very much in line with our expectations. We've also invested $1.1 billion on 20 solutions-focused bolt-on acquisitions.

The average multiple on these deals was 8x EBITDA pre-synergies, reflecting our disciplined and value-focused mindset. Since the last update in August, we have completed 5 further bolt-on acquisitions. The largest of these was Normandy, an integrated provider of pipe products for sewer and drainage applications in North America. Combining this business with our existing Infrastructure Products business will strengthen our capability to provide integrated, value-added solutions to our customers in the important and growing area of water management. All of these acquisitions reflect the continued build-out of our integrated solutions strategy, enhancing our customer offerings in road infrastructure, critical utility infrastructure, and outdoor living. We will continue to develop our capabilities in these areas going forward. Turning now to slide 7, and here you can see the key components underpinning our expectations for our year-end net debt position.

I am pleased to report that we expect to end the year with the strongest balance sheet in our history as a result of our relentless focus on disciplined capital allocation and continuous business improvement to deliver higher profits, margins, returns, and cash for our shareholders. Let me briefly take you through the key components, working from left to right on the slide. We ended 2021 with a net debt position of $6.3 billion, representing a net debt to EBITDA ratio 1.2 times. We expect 2022 to be another strong year of cash generation for the group. This has enabled us to continue to invest in our business for future growth, while also returning significant amounts of cash to our shareholders through dividends and share buybacks.

As I mentioned, in the year to date, we have spent $3 billion on 21 solutions-focused acquisitions. We have also received significant proceeds from divestments, approximately $4 billion, primarily reflecting the divestment of our Building Envelope business earlier in the year. We expect to invest a total of $1.5 billion in capital expenditure in 2022 to support further growth in our existing businesses. In addition, we expect to return approximately $2.1 billion to our shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. Our ongoing share buyback program is on track to return $1.2 billion for the year. The current tranche of our program is well underway and will be completed no later than the 16th of December.

Taking all of this into account and assuming no further material development activity for the remainder of 2022, we expect to finish the year with net debt of approximately $5.2 billion or approximately 1x net debt to EBITDA based on our full year EBITDA guidance. The strength and flexibility of our balance sheet provides us with significant optionality for further value creation going forward. As CFO, I can assure you that we will maintain our disciplined approach and our focus on shareholder value when it comes to the allocation of our capital.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Thanks, Jim. A good summary there of our financial strength and discipline, which has been the hallmark of CRH for many years. At this point, I'd like to briefly update you on the progress we are making in some of our key sustainability focus areas. First, to decarbonization. Where we are continuing to lead the industry. Early this year, we announced ambitious new targets to reduce our absolute group-wide carbon emissions by 25% by 2030. This target covers all our activities across the group, and it keeps us on a path to achieving our ambition to becoming net zero business by 2050. We have a detailed bottom-up roadmap in place across all of our businesses, and we are delivering in line with those plans.

We are now in the process of raising our ambition even further and have submitted an updated 2030 carbon reduction roadmap to the Science Based Targets initiative for validation in line with the new 1.5°C framework. We'll keep you updated on our progress in that regard. We'll also continue to advance our contribution to circularity, preserving our scarce natural resources and using more recycled materials in construction. Today, our low carbon ready-mix concrete products represent over 25% of our concrete sales, and it's our ambition to increase that significantly going forward. In North America, we are the industry leader in the use of recycled asphalt, where approximately 25% or one out of every four miles of road we build is built with recycled materials.

Our ambition is to increase that to 50% within the next decade. 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're also accelerating investment in innovation to develop a higher performing and more sustainable built environment, one that improves the efficiency and the safety of buildings, reduces construction times, and prolong the life cycle of structures. Over the last decade, we have invested approximately $1 billion in innovation across our businesses. Through our new $250 million innovation venture fund, we are supporting further research and innovation in sustainable construction across multiple platforms. Turning now to our outlook for the remainder of the year on slide 9.

Overall, fundamentals across North America and Europe remain positive, supported by robust infrastructure and non-residential demand, which is offsetting a softer residential level of activity. Despite adverse currency translation effects in recent months, we are confirming our previous guidance and expect to deliver full year group EBITDA of approximately $5.5 billion, well ahead of 2021 and representing another year of progress for CRH. As Jim has outlined, our strong and flexible balance sheet provides us with significant optionality to create further value going forward. We are relentlessly focused on continuous business improvement to deliver higher profits, margins, returns, and cash for our shareholders.

Before I hand over to Q&A, I'd like to take a brief moment to share our thoughts on some of the trends we're seeing across our major markets as we look ahead to 2023. First, to North America and to infrastructure, which at approximately 40% of sales represents our largest exposure in the region. The outlook for U.S. infrastructure is robust, with demand underpins by the significant increase in federal funding following the passing of the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act last November. Providing an approximately 50% increase in federal highway funding over the next 5 years. State budgets are also strong, and in recent weeks we have seen positive momentum in state and local transportation bond initiatives to support further investment in this area.

We are now beginning to see these additional funds flowing through the system with positive momentum in bidding activity, contract awards, and indeed our backlogs. This is a supportive environment for further volume and pricing improvements. With the benefits of our integrated solution strategy, we are well-positioned to continue to deliver superior profit and margin performance for our shareholders. Moving to residential demand on slide 12. As I mentioned earlier, the pace of new build construction has eased in recent months as a result of rising interest rates and affordability constraints. We have seen a softening of demand in large-scale single-family homes. While activity levels in other segments of the market, such as multifamily and starter homes, have been more resilient.

Remodeling demand is also expected to remain steady, supported by record levels of home equity and aging housing stocks, with homes built in the early 2000s now entering their prime years for further investment in repair, maintenance, and improvement. Overall, we expect a near-term slowdown in residential demand, but we expect that slowdown to be short and shallow. Let's be clear, we are in a very different place today compared to the significant levels of overbuild we had in U.S. housing back in 2007. The long-term fundamentals of this market remain very attractive, supported by population growth, low inventory levels, and a significant level of underbuild over the last decade. Next to non-residential on slide 13, which represents approximately 30% of our North American sales. The demand in this market has been more resilient than many expected over the course of the year.

Here we are beginning to see the benefits of strong government support for increased investment in clean energy, utilities, and semiconductors following the recent passing of the $370 billion Inflation Reduction Act and $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act. In addition to significant uplift in funding provided by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for water, power, and technology infrastructure. We also continue to see growth in manufacturing activity and higher levels of onshoring as companies focus on simplifying their global supply chains. Our integrated solutions strategy is well-positioned to benefit from these trends.

In fact, we are already supplying a number of these projects, including the initial phases of a multi-billion dollar investment by Intel and Samsung to construct new semiconductor plants in Ohio and Texas respectively. In North Carolina, we helped to deliver Toyota's new $4 billion battery plant facility, benefiting from our relationship, which was established through the delivery of a previous solution to them in Michigan. These are large, complex construction projects which fit very well with our unique capability to provide our customers with the materials, products, and services in one seamless, integrated solution over the entire project life cycle. Moving to Europe on slide 14. In Central and Eastern Europe, construction demand is expected to continue to benefit from strong infrastructure activity, supported by good levels of government funding and more continued EU support for construction.

In Western Europe, while the pace of new build residential demand is expected to slow, RMI activity remains resilient, supported by the growing need to retrofit urban markets to deliver a higher performing, more sustainable built environment. Construction demand is expected to slow in the U.K. We currently have good visibility out to the third quarter of next year, supported by a solid pipeline of infrastructure projects. This should help offset lower activity in the residential market, which is a smaller part of our business there. The pricing environment in Europe is also expected to remain positive in the near term, and we are continuing to focus on cost recovery across our businesses to protect our profitability. In summary, notwithstanding some near-term slowdown in parts of new build residential activity, the overall trend is positive for our businesses heading into next year.

In North America, our largest market, representing approximately 75% of group EBITDA, infrastructure demand is expected to be robust. While the non-residential sector is expected to remain resilient with potential for further upside. In Europe, we expect positive pricing momentum to offset slower volumes in the central and eastern regions, with our businesses in Western Europe supported by resilient RMI and stable infrastructure demand in the U.K. That concludes our presentation this morning, and we're now happy to take your questions. May I ask you please to state your name and the institution you represent before posing your questions. In consideration for others on the line and to make the best use of the time we have, could I please ask you to limit your question 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 1 and then 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Once again, it's star 1 and then 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. We are now going to proceed with our first question. The question's come from the line of Ross Harvey from Davy. Please ask your question.

Ross Harvey (Research Analyst)

Hi, morning all. My question relates to margins. There appears to have been some margin contraction in Q3 as you'd previously flagged. Can you just talk us through some of the relevant drivers there and how we should think about it into Q4 in 2023? Thanks.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Hi, Ross. Good morning, and thank you for that. I'll ask my colleagues, David, who wants to chat about Europe and see what's drove the tough margin perform situation in quarter three, and maybe Jimmy might talk about the Americas. As you said, Ross, we spoke about this at the entrance. We saw a second wave of cost increases coming through during the year on the back of the higher energy costs in particular in the start of the year. We saw logistics costs, we saw bonded services costs and wage costs coming through, and they really rolled through all through quarter three, which made it very difficult for us to recover those cost increases because it takes us a while to recover our price through price increases as we go forward.

Probably be half one next year before we get them done. Maybe, David, you might talk specifically about Europe, which is probably more in the cause areas of inflation. Maybe, Jim, you might just talk to us about cost increases you're seeing in the U.S.

David Dillon (President, Europe (former))

Yeah. Look, morning. I think if you look at us, we've had big increases in energy, as well called out over the last number of months. Also logistics, raw materials, wages as well. We have had a lot of dynamic pricing in place over the last number of months as well. We've had second price increases, in many cases third price increases, towards the fourth quarter. We're very focused on that over the next while in terms of pushing those through and into next year as well to recover that wave of cost increases as Albert called out.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Maybe just to give a bit of color on the U.S., really the same cost inflation drivers as David called out in Europe, really logistics, labor and energy costs. However, maybe in the U.S. not as significant, in terms of pressure and margins as Europe. In fact, in Building Products, we had a very strong Q3 in margin expansion. Then in our AMAP business, what we saw was really a price acceleration coming out in H1 into Q3 and indeed into Q4. That will really continue as Albert said, into H1 2023 as margins recover.

Ross Harvey (Research Analyst)

That's great. Thanks, everyone.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Thanks, Ross. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

We are now going to proceed with our next question. The question's come from the line of Gregor Kuglitsch from UBS. Please ask your question.

Gregor Kuglitsch (Research Analyst)

Hi. Can you hear me well?

Albert Manifold (CEO)

All well, thank you. All fine. Thanks, Gregor.

Gregor Kuglitsch (Research Analyst)

Thank you, Gregor Kuglitsch from UBS. I guess I wanna kind of come back to the 2023 outlook a little bit more. I guess I wanna explore where you think the risks are. You talked about some of the positives. I mean, can you just sort of tell us what worries you most? What's the thing that you think could go wrong into 2023?

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Okay, Gregor. Look, obviously we tried to put some dimension of what we're seeing in 2023 in our presentation and announcement this morning to give people a sense of what we see. We spend a lot of time talking to our customers in the marketplace, again, just give an expectation with regards to that. I think that when I look at our businesses, we're a 75% U.S business, U.S is in a better place than Europe today. It only has to be with one issue, which is inflation and is dealing with higher interest rates. The fundamentals are very strong in the United States. They're strong in Europe as well, by the way, Europe has got more challenges.

When I look at the complexity of challenges, I see Europe probably being more challenged than the United States. There are the issues, obviously, with energy costs, inflation, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe, again, what I might do is I might pass it to my colleagues. Maybe Jim, you might just talk about what risks do we see going forward in 2023 for the United States. Maybe David, I'll ask you to come back in the end, talk about Europe again. Maybe Jim.

David Dillon (President, Europe (former))

Sure, yeah. I think overall, as we set out in the presentation, we look into 2023 in the U.S., we see volume as prices outlook quite positive in the U.S. However, Gregor, if you were to look, I guess, for downside risks in the U.S., which we don't actually see, I guess one of them would be a risk maybe the infrastructure funding getting pushed out because of the continuing wave of inflation that maybe some of the individual states might hold back on releasing projects, waiting in anticipation maybe of inflation coming back. Maybe a second risk might be if we see a sustained period of high interest rates where we may see a, I guess, a continuation of softness in the new res build sector.

Overall, as I said, in the U.S., we actually don't see that as the real greater risk that at the moment in 23.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Just turning to Europe, clearly we still have conflict in Ukraine, which creates a lot of uncertainty around the geopolitics and maybe impacts on energy through the wintertime. Costs we called out already, and managing those costs would be a potential downside risk. We've been very successful in pricing over the last 5 years, and not just this year. We worry about these things, about whether we can get those through over the next while. I will say that, however we've been through this a number of times. We probably lived through three, four, five recessions as a management team.

As we see it right now, we're pretty confident in our pricing momentum that we've established through Q3 into Q4, and we'll be focusing that right through Q1 and Q2 next year as well.

David Dillon (President, Europe (former))

As you rightly say, David, I mean, we've had five years of progressive price increases in Europe, I think it will push on again next year as well. If you're asking the.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Thank you.

David Dillon (President, Europe (former))

What are the downsides? That, that's I guess what we see as the main markets. Thanks, Gregor.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

We are now going to proceed with our next question. The question's come from the line of David O'Brien from Goodbody. Please ask your question. David, your line is open. You may ask a question.

David O'Brien (Equity Research Analyst)

It's David O'Brien from Goodbody. I might focus on Building Products, if that's okay. I think you described it as robust in the presentation, Albert 21% organic EBITA growth points to really strong activity and fairly exceptional operating leverage. I just wonder if you could give us a little bit more color about what is allowing CRH to deliver such consistently strong performance there, and how should we think about it, on a more medium term type of outlook, leaving aside whatever could happen in 23.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Thanks, David. Good morning to you. Yeah, you're right. Building Products has continued yet again to deliver us the lead performer, but it's very much the point of the spear. Probably it's the spear that's delivering us more than anything else. Maybe David, again, you're right about the area. Managing this, maybe you might just fill us in in terms of what's driving the performance in the Products business.

David Dillon (President, Europe (former))

Yeah, we had a good Q3. A solid Q3 following a very good H1, obviously, David. A good underlying demand. If you go back into what we've been talking about for a while now, it's the build of our solution strategy really is what's driving our performance in Building Products. what are we doing there? We're supplying critical infrastructure for utilities, our outdoor living solutions and business as well. Some of that then is focused on the RMI market. Actually, a lot of it's focused on the RMI market, which is again, helping to balance demand. We are bringing a lot of our innovation into that. We talked about innovation a number of times in the presentation. That's feeding through in terms of the quality of the solutions we're providing to our customers.

We have really transitioned over those years of from being a commodity producer of base materials into a fully integrated provider of end-to-end solutions. What that doing, it's better serving our customers' needs and it's better serving CRH, and we're delivering value both to our customers and to ourselves. We're pricing based on value-added full service offerings. You're seeing that coming through. It's happened not just this year, not just last year, but years previous. We're continuing to build that business as well with the deals we've done in the acquisitions you've seen, Calstone, Normandy, which was in the last while, Rinker Materials, and etc this year. Continuing to build that out, continuing ambitions ahead and that's it pulling through.

David O'Brien (Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks, guys.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

The key to our thing as well, key to David saying as well, is the way that our products business integrates so well with our materials businesses. Obviously, it comes through with the excellent performance in our products business, but the pull through our materials business is very strong as well. That helps the materials business as well. Bodes well for the future.

David O'Brien (Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Thanks, David.

Operator (participant)

We are now going to proceed with our next question. The question's come from the line of Arnaud Lehmann from Bank of America. Please ask your question.

Arnaud Lehmann (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Thank you very much. Good morning to the team. My question is regarding, I guess, past and future M&A activity. Starting with the contribution for this year, it clearly boosts to the top line and also the margin, in particular, for Building Products. Could you comment on any particular deal in Building Products that is contributing more than expected for the year? The second part of the question is regarding your M&A pipeline. We are at the moment in the cycle where I would expect more M&A opportunities to emerge. The environment is still good, but the outlook is more uncertain. Do you see a lot of potential deals, in particular in the U.S., coming your way, and what's your appetite for it? Thank you.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Hi, Arnaud. Good morning to you there. Two questions there, one about the pipeline, what we're seeing in deals, and the second question about the contribution of our M&A activity, particularly I think you mentioned products for this current year. I'll pass back to Jim in a moment. Look, it's been an active year for us on the M&A front. Obviously, we had a very significant disposal earlier this year with our OBE business. We also spent a further $3 billion, or will spend a further $3 billion this year on M&A. I mean, that has been building on our franchise, and it's been largely focused on the solutions businesses for sure, but we've done some nice materials business. That's just the way the cookie crumbled, actually just the deals that came in front of us.

Our M&I pipeline is very strong, and we choose to execute against deals where we see value and where it adds to our story. I don't feel any pressure. I don't think we feel any pressure with regard to M&A at this moment in time. We just continue to progressively move to it. I mean, the $1.9 billion Barrette deal was a nice deal to do, but I'm more impressed by the $1.1 billion of the 20-some small M&A add-ons that we did, 'cause that's how we really drive value at Switch going forward.

At this moment in time, there's probably a greater level of uncertainty than there has been for the last couple of years, and just our experience tells us maybe to perhaps cool our jets a little bit and just wait until we see a little bit more certainty in the activity levels in 2023. We have lots to execute against, and prices are always too expensive, Arno. I've always keep saying that no matter what happens. We managed to do the deals this year at 9x EBITDA, 8x for the $1.1 billion small add-on deals we referenced was kind of 8x average synergies. We still are very value focused. The pipeline is good. We could execute on twice the amount of deals if we really wanted to.

I don't think we need to or want to. I think we want to keep our balance sheets, keep capacity there because actually the timing for me to do deals is actually when we start to exit any phase of uncertainty. We were all here in 2011 and 2012 when we hit the pause button to some extent, but we had very strong progressive M&A from 2013 on till about 2016, 2017. That helped build out considerable growth for our business and deliver significant shareholder value. As markets start to recover, that's when I feel will be the opportunity to move ahead with significant M&A again. I want to keep the balance sheets ready for that.

As I said, yeah, happy with the deals we did this year, and we're just watching to see if the situation evolves in 2023. Jim, with regard to the contribution of the current year?

Jim Mintern (CFO)

Morning, Arno. Total contributions from the acquisitions from the second half of last year, 2021, and the deals done this year, Arno, 2022, is approximately around $350 million for the full year in 2022. Maybe just add a few details for you. If you look at the 2021 deals, the National Pipe deal we did, which has really played in our infrastructure utility space, water management that mainly plays down the East Coast of the U.S. Also last year, the big deal if you recall that was the EP Henry deal, our paving business, and also the PebbleTech, which was a nice infill business into our outdoor living solution business.

This year, I think that the Rinker deal we did in Texas, which is a precast concrete business, it's, again, in the pipe and the culvert area, and it's got 3 facilities in Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio, three of the fastest growing, metropolitan areas in the U.S. Being able to plug those solution deals back into our kind of legacy asset positions and really pull forward early some of the synergy delivery, that's what's really driving the performance of those businesses.

Arnaud Lehmann (Managing Director of Equity Research)

That's very clear. Thank you so much.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Thanks, Arno. Have a good day.

Operator (participant)

We are now going to proceed with our next question, and it's from the line of Elodie Rall from JP Morgan. Please ask your question.

Elodie Rall (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. First of all, if we could just summarize the views on each of the three divisions, given your outlook or already commentary for 2023. Is it fair to say that for Americas Materials, you would expect volumes to be up, for Europe Materials, volumes to be down, and the highest impact you would expect is on Building Products given the higher exposure to the residential outlook? Second, given the question just now, if you don't do a lot of acquisitions in 2023, given the uncertainty, would you step up in buyback? Thank you.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Hi, Elodie. Good morning to you. I like the way you ask questions. You asked me to do a forecast for next year. I'll try and dodge it as best I can. Look, I don't know is the answer to the question in terms of where we're going with regards to volumes. All I can do is talk to you about the backdrop and the market that we're in. You're right. Let's just talk about the two markets. In the Americas, we're very clearly seeing, as everybody is seeing, there's a significant amount of funding coming through with regards to IIJA.

There's two further acts which are important in terms of the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, both of them adding a further $670 billion on top of the $1.2 trillion for the IIJA over the next coming years. It's a very supportive funding environment for publicly funded infrastructure in the U.S. That's a sweet spot for Switch. We have designed and shaped our business to play in that space. It contributes over 40% of our activity levels across the United States. So it should be good. The extent of how good it's gonna be and what the volumes will be, we'd have to see how the year rolls out. That supports not only our materials business, but also our products business in the U.S.

Across Europe, I have to say again, looking at what we're seeing, our two main pools of profit, which are Central and Eastern Europe, again, significantly helped by EU funding that will continue to flow into that part of the world for a number of years to come. We've seen the delivery of that in this current year, and we expect to see that in the next year. Happily as well, look despite the challenges that the U.K. faces with regard to public financing, happy to see that there's not quite ring-fencing, but the infrastructure, the major infrastructure projects getting continuous support that should offset any slowdown in res across the U.K.

When you put that into the mix it's hard to see anything other than kind of sort of a reasonably positive aspect in regards of volumes next year. We'll see exactly what that means. I don't see us being a collapse in any sense at all. This is not 2008, 2009. We're facing a slowdown, but I think the space that CRH plays in and the markets that it serves are well set, particularly with the publicly funded infrastructure. Resi on both the U.S and Europe will be back a bit, but I think infrastructure will offset that. I suppose the surprise for us, in particular in North America, as we highlighted this morning, has been the resilient performance of non-residential.

It seems to be helped greatly by some of the big projects we mentioned this morning, which is this onshoring of manufacturing semiconductors into the United States, which is building out manufacturing facilities. That's very helpful because they are large, complex construction projects which take on multi-year projects. We mentioned some of them this morning, but very significant projects could play right into our solutions sweet spot, and we're delivering against those. We're building real credibility and volume across the business, and that looks like it's gonna continue for many years ahead. Broadly speaking, happy enough to be where we are with regards to that and in terms of the center of our business going forward. On share buyback, Elodie, maybe, yeah, you're right.

We're gonna exit this year with the strongest balance sheets in the history of CRH, just at 1 times net debt to EBITDA. As you said before, we're comfortable kind of letting that move up towards 2 times through the full cycle. With that strength of balance sheet, we've certainly got capacity to do more M&A deals. We have a good pipeline. We've had a very good year. We've called it out this year, $3 billion done so far, 21 deals, including Barrette. Pipeline into 2023 is good also. The share buyback at the moment, we're running at about $1.2 billion per year. The current tranche will finish. It's a $300 million tranche. It will finish no later than the 16th of December, and we'll update the market then.

Certainly with the strength of balance sheet, we have that capacity to also in the future maybe increase cash returns to shareholders also. What we do is we keep all our options under review, what the strong balance sheet enables us to do is really gives us optionality about creating further shareholder value into the future. You can be assured that all our capital allocation decisions are always looked through that lens of maximizing shareholder value.

Cedar Ekblom (Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks. Thanks very much.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Thanks, Elodie. Have a good day.

Operator (participant)

We are now going to proceed with our next question. The question's come from Cedar Ekblom from Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question.

Cedar Ekblom (Research Analyst)

Thanks very much. Just one question from me. I wanted to understand the operational synergies a little bit better between the Building Products business and the Materials businesses, and specifically drilling into Architectural Products, which clearly seems to have a bit of a different end market versus the utilities or Infrastructure Products businesses within Building Products. The reason I'm asking the question is, obviously year-to-date, the business has done very well, and we can see that in the performance today. Yet the multiple that the market's willing to pay for the wider business has derated. I just wonder if you have any views on CRH ultimately being valued as a holding company, or if there are actually some real operational synergies between these businesses that the market doesn't understand. Thank you.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Thanks, Cedar, there. Get the essence really of what solutions actually are, and the synergies within our materials business to our products business as such. Our materials business basically is we produce commodity materials, so aggregates, cements, concrete, and that's what they largely do. What our products business does, it takes those commodity-based materials, and it converts them into actual products that people use to construct buildings and infrastructure. Now, as you construct buildings and infrastructure, you have different requirements with regard to the strengths, durability, and use of that particular infrastructure. The very essence of that infrastructure, it needs to ensure that the materials that they use in actually putting together those products are the correct mix and type of materials.

That's really where our technology and our design people, and also where our technical expertise comes in to help here. Our design and structural engineers work with our materials people and indeed our customers to help use the right materials in the right mixes to design the actual materials that are used to build the products. The products we produce are key in doing that, and the materials are crucial in how we do that. We also have the issue with regards to the increasing need to be more sustainable in our, in our types of construction. With more and more, we're getting demands, particularly across North America, from a publicly funded infrastructure, is to increasing the amount of recycling we use in our actual products that we produce.

Circularity is a key, and I think you, if you watch Our capital markets day earlier this year, it's still online. You would have seen that the Department of Transportation in Michigan at that particular time talked about the importance of circularity and recycling. At this moment in time, 25% of every road that we build in North America, and we are the largest road builder in North America by a country mile, is through recycled material. Our ability for our materials people, our materials scientists, and our design engineers to work with our people in our products business to develop solutions that our customers want is absolutely crucial to the solution story as we go forward, as is of course, the whole reduction in terms of CO2 and emissions with regards to that.

It's that seamless knowledge transfer between materials and products business that allows to execute against the solutions business as we move forward.

David Dillon (President, Europe (former))

Great. Thank you very much.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Hope that makes sense to you.

David Dillon (President, Europe (former))

Yeah.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

With regard to your question on whether we're designed to be a holding company, as you call us, or our valuation, CRH has been changing the shape of its business for the past decade. We are now a business that is a much simpler, tighter, narrower focused business, focused on delivering integrated solutions across a wide range of applications, but primarily focused on infrastructure, complex construction projects in non-residential and residential. I think that the real beauty of CRH is actually as we come together, we are producing higher profitability, higher rates of growth, higher rates of cash generation, and higher margin improvement than anybody else in our industry. That comes by being focused industrial players who are focused on what is a tapping into a market which is the growing trend for sustainable construction going forward.

I think that's our game, that's where we position ourselves, and that's what we've been delivering for the last year. Again, another record year of growth for CRH, another record year of profitability, and that's driven by being a solid industrial business with a clear strategic plan to build the business going forward.

David Dillon (President, Europe (former))

Great. Thanks very much.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Thanks, Heather.

Operator (participant)

We are now going to take our last question. The question's come from the line of Harry Goad from Berenberg. Please ask your question.

Harry Goad (Stock Analyst)

Yeah. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I just want to come back, Albert, on your comments on U.S non-residential, which I think certainly sounded more upbeat than I would have expected. You've referenced a couple of sub-sectors within that that are driving high levels of demand. If you think across the wider piece of non-residential and maybe some of the more traditional as we think of like offices, commercial, tourism, hotels, what sort of trends are you seeing there? Are they slowing down or are they still remaining quite resilient? Thank you.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Hi, Harry. Good, good morning to you. I mean, the areas of that you refer to office space and commercial and hospitality, Harry, they've been weak for quite some time, particularly the office space and hospitality and retail, because since COVID, they actually shrunk quite a bit and they haven't really recovered since then. They've been at low levels for the last two-three years anyway. Really what I think, and surprised us as well, but happily, it's been a nice surprise. For the last 12-18 months, we've seen this gradual increase in manufacturing and facilities. Data centers industry has been strong anyway. It's the manufacturing that's coming on, coming back to the United States, both near-shoring and particularly on-shoring. That's what's been very significant. We've seen very strong growth.

Like this year, almost 30% growth across manufacturing facilities. In addition to that, also with regards to the Inflation Reduction Act, a significant push on looking at sustainability and in particular the area of water and utility transportation. That's up almost 20% this year. They're the two areas that are really driving it more than anything else. Happy to see it coming through. The traditional areas that you mentioned, what would have been strong for non-res, they've been down for the past two or three years, and they're just staying down at low levels. The real growth is coming through in utilities in terms of water and power and technology and how we build the infrastructure in around that. That's gonna be obviously a long story for many, many years.

Also about manufacturing facilities and some of the big companies bringing back to the U.S., onshore manufacturing and building big plants which are multi-year projects. Again, very welcome to see. It play right to our solutions sweet spot of large complex construction multi-year programs.

Harry Goad (Stock Analyst)

Interesting. Thank you.

Albert Manifold (CEO)

Okay. Thanks, Harry. Ladies and gentlemen, we've come to the end of our time slot, our allotted time slot this morning. Look, thank you for your attention. Look, I hope that we've managed to answer all of your questions. As always, if you've any follow-up questions, please feel free to get in touch with our investor relations team, we look forward to talking to you again the 2nd of March next year when we report the full year results of 2022. Thank you. Have a good day.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.