CRH to buy back another £100m of its shares

CRH announced the start of the third phase of its £1bn share buyback programme on Tuesday.

The FTSE 100 building materials company first announced the share buyback programme in April, and had already completed the first and second phases the programme, under which around €700m of cash was returned to shareholders.

It said the next phase of the programme would be a discretionary programme to repurchase ordinary shares for a maximum consideration of €100m.

The third phase programme was starting on Tuesday, and would end no later than 31 December.

At the same time, CRH updated the market on its trading for the nine months ended 30 September on Tuesday, reporting a nine-month EBITDA figure of €2.5bn, wuch was 8% ahead of 2017 and 2% higher on a like-for-like basis.

Under the terms of the Phase 3 Programme, ordinary shares would be repurchased on the London Stock Exchange within certain pre-set parameters.

“The Phase 3 Programme, the purpose of which is to reduce the share capital of CRH, will be conducted within the limitations of the authority granted at CRH's annual general meeting on 26 April to repurchase up to 10% of the company's ordinary shares in issue, being 60,283,951 ordinary shares following the completion of the first and second phases of the buyback programme,” the CRH board said in its statement.

It also said it would be limited by the parameters prescribed by the Market Abuse Regulation 596/2014, the Commission Delegated Regulation 2016/1052, and Chapter 12 of the UK Listing Rules.

“The repurchased ordinary shares will be held in treasury pending their cancellation or re-issue in due course.”