Building materials group CRH has announced it will not be in profit the first half of the year, and will only just break even with a massive 20% fall in earnings.

In the first half of 2009 they announced £83m profit, in trading this year which is up to 30 June the firm said pre-tax profit would be “close to breakeven”.

Also earnings in terms of EBITDA would fall around 20% on the £541m recorded for the same period a year earlier.

However, the rate of decline in sales slowed, with sales over the 12 months to the end of June down 10%, compared with a 14% drop in the year to the end of April.

They expect a huge second half this year though and say they are likely to be higher than the £957m last year due to cost cutting and currency movements.

CRH said the measures taken to cut costs and reduce excess capacity since 2007 delivered total cumulative annualised savings of £1.12bn by the end of 2009, with a further £365m projected for 2010/11.

The firm’s interim results for 2010 are due to be posted on 24 August 2010.

The group also announced it had spent £111m on 13 acquisitions in the first half of 2010, and is due to invest a further £16m in Yatal Cement as its share of funding for two projects in north-east China.

Myles Lee, CRH chief executive, said:” We are seeing a good flow of bolt-on opportunities across our businesses and we continue to monitor wider developments in our industry; however, we are maintaining a patient approach in progressing transactions in light of the challenging market backdrop.”

BuilderScrap feels that if the sales are down then people must be making sure they are using all of their supply rather than throwing their building material surplus away. We urge all UK builders to use eco building materials and not throw away construction building materials that are surplus.