CRH plc (NYSE:CRH) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call February 29, 2024 8:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Albert Manifold - CEO

Jim Mintern - CFO

Randy Lake - COO

Tom Holmes - IR

Conference Call Participants

Anthony Pettinari - Citigroup

Ross Harvey - Davy Research

Brent Thielman - D.A. Davidson

Paul Roger - BNP Paribas

Keith Hughes - Truist Securities

Gregor Kuglitsch - UBS

Kathryn Thompson - Thompson Research

Operator

Good morning all, and welcome to the CRH 2023 Full-Year Results Presentation. My name is Lydia, and I’ll be your operator today. [Operator Instructions]. I’ll now hand you over to Albert Manifold, CRH Chief Executive, to begin the conference.

Albert Manifold

Hello, everyone, Albert Manifold here, CRH Group Chief Executive, and you're all very welcome to our 2023 full-year results presentation and conference call. Joining me is Jim Mintern, our group CFO, Randy Lake, Chief Operating Officer, and Tom Holmes, Head of Investor Relations. Now, before we get started, I'll hand you over to Tom for some brief opening remarks.

Tom Holmes

Thanks, Albert. Hello, everyone. Before we begin today's proceedings, I'd like to draw your attention to Slide 1 shown here on screen. During today's presentation, we'll be making some forward looking statements relating to our future plans and expectations. These are subject to certain risks and uncertainties and actual results and outcomes could differ materially due to the factors outlined on this slide. For more details, please refer to this slide, our annual report, and other SEC filings, which are available on our website.

I'll now hand over to Albert, Jim, and Randy, to deliver some prepared remarks. After that, we'll open the line for a questions-and-answers session.

Jim Mintern

Thanks, Tom. Over the next 30 minutes or so, we'll take you through a brief presentation of the results we've published this morning, highlighting the key drivers of our operating performance over the course of 2023, as well as providing you with an early indication of our expectations for our business in the year ahead. We're also going to spend some time discussing our capital allocation priorities going forward and how we're positioning our business for the next phase of performance and growth to deliver further value for our shareholders. After that, as usual, we'll have plenty of time for Q&A, and overall, we should be done in about an hour or so. So, first to Slide 3, some key messages from today's results. I'm pleased to report another year of record financial delivery for CRH, with strong growth across all key metrics and adjusted EBITDA ahead of our previous guidance. Despite contending with some continued inflationary cost pressures across our markets, we've delivered further improvement in our profitability, representing the 10th consecutive year of margin expansion for the group. We ended the year with our strongest balance sheet in our history, supported by our relentless focus on cash generation and the disciplined approach to capital allocation that you've come to expect from CRH over many years. The capacity we have on our balance sheet represents the rewards of all our efforts, providing us with tremendous optionality to create further growth and value for you, our shareholders. All of this financial delivery reflects the continued benefits of our differentiated customer-focused strategy, providing integrated solutions that solve the increasingly complex challenges of our customers and generates higher growths for our business. So, it's clear that our strategy is delivering, and we're now focused on accelerating the development of that strategy. We've been very active on the acquisition front, increasing our exposure to attractive high growth markets, and further developing our solutions capabilities and materials, road and utility infrastructure, and outdoor living.