Irish building materials company CRH said today it expects to post a 25 per cent rise in first-half pretax profit.
"We expect to deliver strongly in terms of both profit growth and development activity for 2007 as a whole," CRH Chief Executive Liam O'Mahony said.
The company said it had spent €395 million ($531.1 million) on acquisitions during the first half of its business year and that Mr O'Mahony would step down at the end of 2008.