Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I’d like to welcome you to the 2016 Interim Results for CRH here today in London. My name is Albert Manifold; I’m the Chief Executive of CRH. And I’m joined here on stage by Senan, Senan Murphy.

Good morning, everyone.

Senan is our new CFO. And together, for the next 30 minutes, so we’re going to take you through a presentation of really what’s behind the results you’ve seen this morning, the story behind them, and how we see the world, a little bit about 2016, of course, upfront. But I’m going to take about 5 minutes, at the end of that presentation, before the Q&A, just to take you through the changes that we’ve been through in our business, and looking at where we are now and where we see the next few years. The years 2009 to, I suppose 2012, 2013, we had a terrible recession, significant restructuring cost cutting, really sort of getting in pace with the volumes we saw there. 2014, market changed. We reset our business for the next phase of growth across CRH. I suppose, 2015 really was the year of big deals, and 2016 is a year of deliveries, as we said last year. I think it’s good to ask ourselves the question now, as we see the year coming out ahead of us, where 2017 is going to be, and, indeed, the years to 2020, 2021, and just give you a sense of where we see our business. And after that, of course, we’ll go in to Q&A here in the room, and we’ll have people on the wires as well. So maybe just kicking off, looking at some of the key messages, I’m not going to dwell too much on this page. Two points I want to make about this. I came up through the operations of CRH and for me as an operator, the real health of the business is shown by the margins and the returns that deliver by the business. And we can see our business, again, ahead…

Thanks Albert. Good morning, everyone. It’s a pleasure for me to be here and this is my first opportunity to actually to speak all of you at a results event. And with a very strong set of results it certainly a nice way to be able to start this conversation. So today what I’d like to do is just spend a few minutes running through some of the highlights of our financial performance for the first half of the year. So starting sales and earnings. Today we’re reporting a sales number of €12.7 billion for the first half of the year that is a 35% increase over the corresponding period last year. In addition, we’re reporting an EBITDA of €1.12 billion that is more than double the EBITDA that we reported for the first half of last year. Very strong performance. As you can see on this slide there are number of components, number of elements that are driving that strong performance. The one that stands out most for me however, is the organic growth is this significant organic growth that we’ve delivered in the last six months. What you can see here is organic sales growth of €800 million in the first half and a corresponding EBITDA growth in organic terms of €150 million. That converts to a 19% operating leverage. That’s significant profit delivery. Obviously, the other significant component in the first half of this year is a contribution from those large acquisitions that Albert mentioned earlier that we completed in the second half of last year. Here you can see that those deals are contributing nearly €2.9 billion in sales and over €380 million in EBITDA in the first six months of this year. As Albert mentioned earlier on, those deals now are fully integrated in to…

Thanks and leave that slide up there for a moment because that to me is probably the most important slide in the presentation this morning. We went to our shareholders 16, 18 months ago, we asked them to trust us. We said, we want your money please, we’re going to take that money, we’re going to borrow more money and we’re going to invest in assets that’s great value for your our shareholders. And a key part of that promise to them was we will pay back that money we borrow as quickly as possibly can to get the debt levels CRH back to where you expect them to be. And its credit to Senan and his team, may even the team before and did all the people in our group that we focused on that and it provides very strong tight cash management and are well on track to deliver our planned impact ahead of our plan. Just looking at the outlook for the CRH Group before I talk about where I see us going in the next few years. We’ve signaled well to with our announcement at the end of October where our earnings levels are going to be somewhere north of €3 billion I don’t know specifically where they are going to be and where it’s going to land it depend on whether how long the season goes, volumes, pricing, whatever. We’ll let you know as soon as we know. And as Senan has made clear to you the net debt at 6 billion you’re looking at a net debt EBITDA ratio below our normalized levels at about two which is very good to see. That’s going to be delivered by as I said earlier on modest growth continuing in Europe, it’s a slow unwind, but growth…

Good morning. Yassine Touahri from Exane BNP Paribas. A few questions. Firstly, on would you, there are a lot of political changes in Europe, in the UK, it’s an election year in the U.S., there will be a lot of election in Continental Europe, how do you think this could impact your business? Do you see this as an opportunity? Do you see more infrastructure spending? Or do you see this as a risk? Then, my second question would be on cost inflation. What we’ve seen since the beginning of the year is that commodity prices have started to increase and coal prices, asphalt costs are rising today. Do you think this could slow down the pace of your margin expansion next year? Or do you think this could be offset by more pricing? And the last question on capital allocation. We’ve seen that you created an Asia division, does it mean that you’ve got ambition to become bigger in this region through acquisition, or through CapEx?

Okay. So three questions there. One, discussing the political changes that may be coming in the United States and Europe 2017 with some elections in Europe and also at the end of this year the presidential in the U.S. and the impact that may have on infrastructure and a question on some cost inflation coming in whether that was with the margins we can manage our margins and the last question the ambition we have for acquisition based on the Asia business. On the first question, with regard to the political changes I think the U.S. has set its stall out with regard to infrastructure spend, absent what happens on the political stage. And the federal government have committed to the fact that funding and cash in place to increase funding for the next five years. In addition to that, we’ve seen across the last 12, 14 months 18 states deliver specific stage initials that will deliver about 27 billion of extra funding to highways and road programs again over the next coming years. It is interesting to note if we add both of those together and look what happened over the last four or five years, because we can be seduced in to thinking that the current environment is the new normal, we spent, in the United States, about $420 billion on roads over the last four, five years, four years. In the next four years, with the federal money and the state money that’s committed, that’s likely to be closer to $470 billion. So I think we’re looking at a very significant uptick of 11%, 12% in actual dollars of spend available for U.S. infrastructure in the next number of years. With regard to Europe, of course, a lot of the European infrastructure spending comes from the European…

Gregor Kuglitsch from UBS. I’ve got three questions. The first one is on pricing in Europe. Can you give us a little bit of an outlook when you see that turning, I think it was quite clear still under pressure in most of your geographies in the first half? That’s the first question. The second question is can you give us some kind of sense, it’s obviously difficult for us to do, as the business stands today, what you think, at the peak, on a pro forma basis, the EBITDA was? So against the €3 billion, do you have a rough guestimate for us, just so we have a little bit of reference point. And then as we go in to next year, I think you sort of called out, you’ll be back in the M&A game, I think that’s what you said. So, can you give us a little bit of color as to what kind of direction you’re thinking? Is it rebalancing more away from cement and heavyside, which obviously you went a little bit overweight, or is it more a geographic game? So if you can give a bit of color of what we should be expecting in terms of M&A in to next year, please. Thank you.

Okay, there’s three questions there. Very quickly, on the, the pricing in Europe, you’re right, it remains very challenging. And I do think that what was the pricing is behind us. What is significant, if you look on page 39, I’m sorry to say, but a lot of the facts are on that page in terms of volumes and pricing with Europe, on the left hand side of the column, you’ll see all the arrows pointing north, all pluses, which is volume. On the right hand side, which is pricing, all the arrows are pointing south. That just doesn’t make sense. But actually, if you stop the clock and look at where you are in recession, the early stages of recession, normally, and we’ve said this before, you see a scramble for volume as people try to fill capacity. And that tends to come at a little bit of pricing indiscipline. There are some good markets around where we start to see pricing coming back. And I believe that in this time make sure we would be in a better place and in 2018 we will be in a better place again, it’s a long slow unwind, but I think we’ve turned the quarter but it is challenging absolutely right. With regards to where we are, with regard to EBITDA and our business of this year versus where we were in terms of peak, it’s a very different business of course and it’s like comparing apples and oranges, it was below 3 billion in terms of peak in where we were plus our business now is completely different [indiscernible] different size, the volumes are impacted otherwise I am not too sure is actually comparable in terms of looking where it was. And with regards to the M&A and looking at that and where our focus is going forward, you’re absolutely right we’ve taken a shift towards the heavyside businesses but that was opportunity driven and we did say last year we felt that the deals that we did last year on the LafargeHolcim deals were very much three or four years of acquisitions compressed into one deal we saw the opportunity and we basically just executed that opportunity. We do have a long term strategy I think the balance business is against end use across different products and different geographies, that has not changed and will not change. Over time it will redress itself because when you make a big step to one direction you’re not going to auto correct in 12 months, it will take time, but overtime what has dealt and delivered for CRH has been having a balanced strategy, it’s help us ride out the recession much better than anybody else, strong cash flow, better balance to returns, better balance in terms of end user exposure and we think it’s the right strategy about business going forward and that’s what we will return to in time.

Thanks. Rob Gardiner, Davy. Three for me again, it’s brief, but just to go back on the European pricing and the kind of competitive dynamics there just to pick out a couple of markets where you have very large operations like Switzerland, Poland and even the Philippines related to what some peers are reporting, I don’t know if you would just expand on the kind of competitive dynamics in those markets? Two, in terms of again back on M&A you obviously passed on a lot of deals this year I just wonder in terms of where price expectations are now, have they moved, are they reset higher? And just going back on the UK there the Brexit so rather than ask what’s going to happen as a result of Brexit I am just wondering may be how your mind as a CEO changes due to the uncertainty, does it affect your CapEx decisions, capital allocation here, how you think about that? Thank you.

Okay. They are three good questions there, Bob, I have to say and specifically going back in the pricing in European and you mentioned Switzerland, Poland and the Philippines and you’re right, we have lost market share in Poland and we’ve lost market share in Switzerland and we’ve lost market share in the Philippines. Now, most people I know in CRH know that is, just goes against the grain we don’t give away market share. But when I see the fact that and I take a country like Poland as a good example. Poland this year will have about 15.8 million tons of cement which is about 2% up on last year. That’s the same level of cements demand as in 2008. The price of cement is 25% lower in Poland today than it was in 2008. And since then there are cost increases, increased regulation, increase of duplication, all of that has come through our businesses. So I believe as a chief executive of business we have to earn a price that helps us generate a level of profitability because return for the investments that we’ve made the hundreds of millions of investment we’ve made. You referenced other people who have produced results, we’re down 9% on our volume in a market that’s up 2%. All those are up double-digit percentage but their prices are in the toilet. I have no idea what they are at? But I know in running a business to the long term value for shareholders I have got to get paid for the product that we’re selling. So, we’re patient and we’re showing forbearance, it won’t last forever, but we’re doing what we can. And that’s the same story in Switzerland by the way and the same problem, people chasing short term gain by…

Thank you. Good morning. Arnaud Lehmann from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. I have three questions if I may, first few a general one for you Albert. You’ve done -- the portfolio was quite turning, you’ve done the acquisitions now you’ve almost done the de-leveraging. You’ve explained clearly your view of the cycle for Europe and the U.S. What’s left for you to do as a CEO in the next one, two, three years beyond just running the cycles? That’s my first question. My second question is just a follow up on M&A, you expressed your interest or you said the assets were in good shape in Belgium and the U.S. from HeidelbergCement and steel, while obviously you didn’t proceed with these acquisitions. Do you have any comments to make on those? And lastly, you said your strategy is more about pricing rather than volumes. However, when I look at your Americas metals business it seems like you have more volumes and competitors, but maybe such less pricing. So could you please comment on that?

Okay, three questions there. First of all, the [indiscernible] business is kind of about the CEO you just how this [indiscernible] I am just a guy passing through here. I represent the seventh CEO of CRH and I’ll be eighth and ninth and tenth it’s about the companies not about an individual. What I did say to you was CRH regardless of to be a great company and great companies produce superior performance over a sustained period of time. We have a good cycle. We’re in the right side of history at this moment in time and look at the cycle. You’re right we will pay the cycle well. But we’re generating a lot of cash, as Senan has explained, and that cash will be put to use in terms of acquiring further businesses, increasing the breadth of our businesses, the depth of our businesses in creating further value for our shareholders. That’s what we as a team are focused on in CRH. That’s the future. With regards to those Belgium assets you refer to, yes, I think they were very fine assets. We had a good look at them. We spoke to Heidelberg about them, but at the end of the day they decided to sell them to Cementir. And I wished Cementir very well. They’re a good player, they’re a good operator, they run their businesses very well. And I think Heidelberg got a good price. I wish them both very well and what they did. With regard to the U.S., yes, our volumes are ahead. I wouldn’t get too concerned about the volume increases in the first half of the year. It’s very much the slow end of the year. I would look at the full year. So plus we’re seeing sort of mid-teen growth in the first half of the year, overall we’re looking at sort of the 4%, 5%, 6% volume growth at best for the full year, which is more in line with everybody else. I would say that the weather up in the North and the North East was very favorable in the winter season, which is where we are strongest. So we are the ones who would benefit most because of that. I don’t think it signifies anything else other than that. And in terms of the cost dynamics that you see, again, that’s over a 12-month period. You find one or two or three months where we’re doing a lot of base work, the average price drops down, rather than the high value-added stone. It doesn’t indicate a different change in construction, it’s just the type of material you’re supplying at a particular time. And particularly with lower volumes, it can give you, screw your percentages. I’d watch it over the full year, rather than the six months.

John Fraser-Andrews, HSBC. I want to carry on, on American materials. After the very strong performance in half 1, and I note what you’ve just said about the weather in the North East, but you also said earlier that your backlogs were very good that you haven’t borrowed from the future in terms of what’s happened in Q2 and current trading. So can you indicate where those backlogs are? Are they consistent with that 4% to 5% volume growth in that American materials? Can year say, within half1 to what extent was that very strong EBITDA increase bolstered by any stock profit on your bitumen purchasing program? And can you give a comment on where the contracting margins are trending in that materials business?

Okay. The first and the third questions are yes/no answers, so I can just give you, and I can go in to the bitumen prices in one second, in the middle. First of all, in the backlogs, just to confirm, the backlogs are exactly where we would expect them to be. They’re pretty much in line in some of the business, and ahead of last year, and are consistent with the volume guidance we’re giving for the full year. So they’re in pretty good shape at this point in the season. With regards to the contracting margins, contracting margins are actually ahead, again. Again, good to see that because, again, it really attests to, I suppose, the strength that contractors feel about bidding work going forward. That’s the part of our business where we’ve got the longest lead times, most of our work is almost 12 months ahead. And the margins are ahead in that business at this moment in time. Specifically about bitumen, and what’s bitumen, the benefit we got with lower bitumen in the first half of the year, again, it’s over the full year. We do most of our bitumen in the second, like this quarter and next quarter. But specifically to your question, everybody has seen the price of oil for down and, indeed, the price of bitumen reduced during the first half of this year, our customers, too. Most people who follow our business very well in the United States know that our asphalt business is a significant user of that bitumen. It’s actually half of our total energy costs bill. We spent about €900 million on bitumen last year, but you’ve got to slide and dice that. About one-third of all our contracts for asphalt have got these clauses in them called escalators. And…

Robert Eason from Goodbody. Just a few questions. Just in relation to U.S. products I have two questions, just on the non-res market, what is your thought on that you know there are some talking about projects being delayed ahead of the presidential election, so just your general commentary around U.S. non-res markets? And second with U.S. products compared to the last couple of years the drop through in terms of organic growth just down a bit in the first half may be just go through the dynamics with us and the expectations of drop through the volumes continue to come through that business. And coming over to Europe and European materials and your consistent comments about the pricing environment in European materials and we have to wait for it. In terms of that drop through coming through like should we start stepping up the drop through into the second half or are we really talking about 2017 and 2018 before we get that kind of real strong double-digit drop through. I am sorry, just one financial question. Just kind of the note 12 you talk about acquisition costs and there are 25 million last year, there were 1 million this year and but you just simply say it does not include ongoing kind of inspiration costs, can you just give us a flavor of what those ongoing inspiration costs were in the first half and what we should be looking in for the full year and is there any carry over into 2017.

Before I pass the acquisition question to Senan in a moment. First, I have that conversation with Mike I kind of start booking price increases for-- so that we find that to be the most consistent external guidance in terms of [indiscernible] non-res construction as it actually follow the good six to nine month lead time. I know there is some contradictory information out there from [indiscernible] we actually kind of figure out that as talking to developers, talking to contractors, get all of this very consistent what we’re seeing with ABI so that 3% to 5% growth seems to be going forward, it seems to be in commercial, lodging, office space, warehousing and that seems to be the area for us continue to grow our order books are good, our purest non-residential business is all capital bidding envelop and some of our products businesses the order books for those businesses look pretty strong for the remainder of the year. So it looks to be in good shape. So nothing -- any sign of pull back there at all. As I mentioned products business, you’re right we saw the drop through in the first-half of the year was 11% leverage was supposed to what you would expect to see from 15% to 20%, that’s a product mix issue more than anything else with the -- in our Americas products business and APG pretax which is kind of a heavy industrial infrastructure type business and also we have OBE. What we did see in the first-half of the year with a higher than anticipated spend on U.S. growth and infrastructure they performed better in the first-half year, they tend to be more lower commodity type margin of that products. So in that compressed six month period they’re the ones that perhaps pulls down that drop to, it’s just a mix issue over the 12 months it should even itself out over time. And third issue with regards to European pricing, seriously I would say from -- when I am saying to you on the stage is there at the moment I look there we’d like to talk about things that are being delivered for rather than most common. I hope I wouldn’t be saying I think didn’t think this coming, didn’t need this coming but I think it’s going to take time, it’s going to patchy ultimately take that from back but [indiscernible] wait before talking about before bookings into any numbers.

It’s Will Jones from Redburn. Three as well, if I could at least. The first is on the UK volumes in the first-half I think it was at plus 21% number on to then for the first-half. Is that a one off or is it something around how you’re running the strategy in time that please? And second was I think in the annual report there was a reference to it an ongoing dispute with [indiscernible] financials and regarding the final payment for that deal. Can you just update us on where that is at please? And then last one is more [indiscernible] one around distribution which obviously given everything with LafargeHolcim and CRL in the last couple of years just taken bit of a back seat if you like in terms of development inside the group. How do you see that business in terms of how big it needs to be, or any other measure over the medium term, both the U.S. and Europe just strategy related to that area?

We’ll see questions two which I am going to answer, one which I won’t. I have no intention of probably going to start talking ourselves and LafargeHolcim on an open microphone, so that will be out in the fullness of time. And with regards to the cement volume you referred to that is periodically and we were required and happy to do so to supply cement to the LafargeHolcim as part of disposal which is why it skewed our volumes much higher than they should be. Our real cement volumes are up 4%. So there is an internal -- it’s just there is a one off we have to supply volume perfectly [indiscernible] to stay where they were doing they continue this side of it. And with regard to distribution, Europe distribution, I think our American distribution as well I have to say we actually and distribution is a key part of what we have going forward. I mean have done of course an option to acquire a very significant business in France coming up in the next couple of years. We have a participation in Samse which is a big business in the eastern part and southern part of France, very fine business, generates good return. France of course is a difficult place construction wise. But the residential market is strong and in particular there is a one part of France where we do see growth in residential going forward absent any kind of a difficulty to the overall French construction market hit it and south and the east. So distribution remains core to our business it’s the key focus for us and in a couple of years time we’ll be talking here hopefully about stepping up that investment, which seem quite investment of €600 million to €700 million going into that again. So it’s key part of what we do, I wouldn’t just misinterpret the last 12 months.

Christen Hjorth from Numis. Just a couple from me. Can you give a bit more color on the additional synergies which have been identified in LafargeHolcim assets, and also, the scope for additional synergies going forward versus the target? And secondly, CapEx at 80% of depreciation, how do you see that playing out for the next couple of years?

Okay, I’ll pass CapEx to Senan in a moment, to talk about that. With regards to the additional synergies, mainly coming through an improved process and greater cross-selling between our businesses. If you can recall, a big part of what we said about the footprint of doing the LafargeHolcim deal was we saw great synergy between our businesses, how they would fit together. And I think, perhaps, we’re seeing more savings, in particular, which we’re seeing between our Belgian and French businesses than we would have anticipated, and also, between our Canadian and U.S. business, which has allowed to step up the improvements in the course of this year. With regard to making any further statement with regard to synergies, I think what we’ll do is at the end of this year, when we report our results for 2016 in spring of next year, we’ll update you in terms of where we see the targets, as we achieve them. Senan, in terms of the CapEx, I think 80% is a measure over the first six months. So, obviously, you need to extrapolate that over a longer period of time. I think it’s probably a fair reflection to think about our CapEx as being in line with depreciation, so at about 100%. We should certainly be in the 90% to 110% range. In terms of our CapEx, I think it’s worth highlighting the fact that 65% of our CapEx today is going into Americas business. So you would expect that in a business where we’re closer to full capacity. And then for example, in our European heavyside business, where we’re not at full capacity, you would have a lower amount of CapEx. So I think the fair number to think about is about 100% depreciation. And in terms of where it’s going obviously, it’s going more and more, but it’s going into expansion. We are obviously looking Asia as well in terms of CapEx, going forward. That will be something we’ll come back to you with in the future. I’m just conscious we, I need to give some time for people on the telephone lines, [indiscernible], and also the wires. So we might take one or two more questions from the floor, before we go down the lines on the wire side.

Glynis Johnson from Deutsche Bank. Just one question, if I may then, please, and it really follows on the CapEx, but in more general terms. You talked about a 70% utilization in U.S. materials, but obviously you have a number of products within that. I wonder if you can give us a bit of color about the different product areas, either relative to each other or relative to that 70%, so we can see where you are more strained in terms of the capacity available.

Okay, as a general overall comment with regard to capacity, first of all, it’s more regional differentiation than actual within the actual project, within the product itself. What I would say to you is that capacity is something, we’re not measuring capacity as three shifts, seven days a week, because you can’t sustainably run a business on that basis. We look at a capacity probably about 2 in a quarter, or maybe 2.5 as the absolute maximum we can get. Looking on that basis across all our material business lines on our materials business, OMG business, so aggregates, asphalt, ready-mixed concrete, and, indeed, our precast business in products, again, at 70%, there’s plenty of headroom there regard to it, going forward. The area where we might be tight in capacity in our products business. And that would be regional, were we’ve seen the strongest of growth, which would be in the Southern States, and particularly out west. And, in fact, we’re building capacity there. But back East, we still have plenty of capacity. So maybe if we looked at a little bit of Florida, Texas, maybe as you go further west, and in to the Pacific Northwest, that’s where the capacity might get a bit tighter. But again in the city, we’re actually constructing factors for the future there as well. So, all told, I think we’re still comfortable with the figure we’re going to you of 70% of the big profit earners in the materials business across all the range of businesses, across all the geographies would have that capacity spare. We might take one or two more questions from the floor, before we go down the lines on the wire side.

Aynsley Lammin from Canaccord. Just one very quick one on kind of acquisition spend of the leverages that’s in expected. Just give us a feel for what level of acquisition spend you would be comfortable with, what we should expect in 2017 and 2018 or the other side what kind of range of net debt to EBITDA you’ll be targeting?

Okay. I have been very consistent to over the years and part of our investment offering is looking at net debt to EBITDA that we’re very comfortable with and the normalized level, as Senan has said around will be about 2.2 times or so. And looking at that level where we are at the moment, we’ve no intentions stepping on net debt back up between half which was after LafargeHolcim deal. So the key within the comfortable and historically normalized level within CRH we would anticipate 2017 if we got a debt level back to where we’ve indicated which we think we will, probably somewhere in the region of 1.5 billion to 2 billion will be appropriate in terms of our own debt metrics. All right. So I am just going to may be move if you don’t mind, to the telephone lines, in terms of any calls or indeed if any questions from the web I might take those because I know people are frantically waving me to stop this part of the call. Thank you very much indeed. Okay. First, and there are number of questions coming here. First question on capital allocation may be I might talk about, and Senan, you might in on this question. On capital allocation how do you prioritize capital expenditure versus dividend? Which is good question in terms of -- well, I don’t think at this moment in time anybody buys CRH stock purely for dividends, we’re not of dividend yield business. We’re a business that grows its bottom line and provides both in the stock price. And I think everything we would do is supportive of that. We see deals out there that we can buy businesses at price that create value and provided we consistently see that going forward we will be in the acquisition game. I will be very supportive of expansion CapEx. And I’ll ask Senan to help in a moment, in terms of where the pace of that actually is. If I look about our capital expenditure going backward and indeed going forward the best returning investments we have in CRH is internal CapEx. We’ve been very consistent of us and the more CapEx we can put into our businesses to improve our processes, to expand our footprints the more we will do. So actually we will prioritize both of those because they bring growth. Of course we do recognize that the dividend is very, very important as well which is why we’ve shown that this morning. Senan in terms of CapEx I wondered you might just talk about, historically, what it’s been and as we look at it going forward.

Yeah I think look, we’ve talked about CapEx earlier on a couple of times in the, again the ongoing guidance is that our CapEx going forward you’d expect it to be in the 100% plus or minus on depreciation and more and more obviously there is an emphasis around expansion CapEx. I think you can all rest assure that there isn’t any CapEx deals that come to Albert and myself that get turned down because of any obsession with using debt targets. So we’re investing where required in our businesses and supporting growth to do that and I think that certainly continues to be the case. So if you go back and get my view on that question, CapEx obviously in terms of good returning CapEx is our first priority having the capacities to do acquisition than obviously is what Albert has talked about secondly. And this year obviously our focus was to get our balance sheet back and healthy so that we would be in a position to be able to do that in 2017 and beyond.

I’ve controlled the questions, so you get the next couple. One here working capital of sales has improved again is that sustainable and do you think you can improve form here?

Again as I talked about working capital as a percentage of sales it’s something that, it’s a continuous journey, it’s a focus around the business. But I would say I mean Albert gave some credit to some finance people earlier on this goes across the business. So everybody in the business focuses on working capital. It’s actually part of our bonus theme, a part of our management. So everybody is focused on around the business. Albert talked to that cash been [indiscernible] and so all of our business leaders all think of that cash and run their business, has been focused on our working capital. So, all of our business continues to grow. I think we have opportunity to become more and more efficient in terms of the way we operate and it’s what you’ve seen promised is that continuous improvements are only around CapEx as a percentage of sales continuing to improve. That’s what we’ve shown you throughout 2015 and obviously we’re still on that journey in ‘16 and it will continue to be a focus half to 2016 as well.

Well for me a good question here, it says talking about the -- give me a sense of what the strategy of CRH is going to unfold, what’s your next big deal or deals coming from in the next few years ahead. We have been very consistent over the years talking about the balance spot we’ve had, the CRH balance portion of the end use and marks and products and I’ve been very clear about that. And I suppose if I look at some of the deals that were of interest to us during the course of this year, it was a very big distribution business in the United States, which we’ve passed on because of price and timing. But that was a nice business, that’s indicative of how we feel, the strength we feel about and it continue to invest in the United States economy, it’s a great place for the business. There was a very big heavy side business from the U.S., which have been very good to our business if we [indiscernible] price that made sense to us. Again, we couldn’t but again an indication of plugging back into the heavy side business in the United States, which we see as a source of sustainable growth going forward. The question I asked from somebody about distribution the fact that we’re focusing on -- we’ve a very big deal coming our way on French distribution hopefully in the next two or three years. We have faith in distribution in Europe, it makes very good returns, margins are ahead of that business for the first-half of this year. Again, looking at that so it’s really filling up the strategy in areas where we have faith in our business and we’ve a proven ability to deliver profit and improve those…

We have a question from Mike Betts from Jefferies. Please go ahead with your question.

I have two questions if I could please. I think you talked about your volume guidance for the year, 4% to 5%. Can I ask what you’re thinking on price? And I think you touched on it a bit sort of more base material, but the 3% obviously in H1 is somewhat low than the 7%-8% your competitors are achieving. I mean do you think you’ll get that high for year? Or do you think 3% is a better glide. And then secondly, in the [indiscernible] cement plant that’s out in Canada, could I just revisit that and ask do you now see that as a threat or an opportunity? I mean an opportunity I guess [indiscernible] potentially in the U.S. but maybe a stretching Canada and how you planning to deal with that? Thank you.

Mike, and just to be clear Mike is talking about the U.S. market there, referring to the fact that our volumes were ahead and our prices were ahead by 3% when others were reporting a price increase of maybe 6%, more 6%, 7%. Again, I suppose, just be careful about looking making long-term judgments based on the first half of the year. We will guide you towards that price increase that we’re indicating, so 3%, 4% for the full year rather than anything higher than that. And then we seem to be, my opinion, in that sort of early mid-cycle phase of the U.S. where we’re looking at volumes up 3%, 4%, pricing, on average, about 3% in terms of our products. It’s to do with mix, of course. But, generally speaking, I would say it’s across the range, about that level. Specifically with regard to McInnis cement, and just to fill everybody in the detail, this is new cement plant that is being constructed out in the very Eastern Seaboard of Canada, which will bring new capacity on to that part of Canada. And the question is will that impact upon our business at this year or next year or year after that, either in Canada or North America. That business is not up and running yet. And our business, as I said, in Canada has shown good growth in the first six months of the year, volumes and prices are ahead. With regards to what it means for the markets going forward in the future, well, I can’t speculate. All I can tell you is that there are imports of cement all along the Eastern Seaboard of United States, and the price of cement in the United States is $10 a tonne higher than it is in Canada. The cement plant was built on water, with the specific capability to export. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions as to where most of that cement may end up. Okay, I hope that answers your questions, Mike. Just returning back to two questions I have on the wire. One here, topical question, Senan, the FX impact in 2016, what do you think, given the weakness of sterling, that will be for CRH for the full year, please?

Yes. So, FX, obviously, sterling is our biggest factor. But if you look around our business, at today’s exchange rates, if you were to apply them to our business and look out to the second half of the year, probably talking in or around EUR80 million of FX headwinds, the majority of that in sterling. Again, using today’s exchange rates, you’re probably talking about EUR50 million of that headwind caused by sterling. So as you remember, or look at sterling, average exchange rate 2015 to average exchange rate 2016, assuming today’s price holds for the rest of the year, we’re talking about a 12%, 13% devaluation in sterling when you apply that to our UK earnings. That’s what you end up with.

And just a last question here, because I’m just, they’re winding me up here at the very end here. Just in terms of the EUR1 billion cash flow versus EUR3 billion, given what we’ve done in previous years, why that reduction in cash conversion in 2016?

Yes, okay, I guess, looking at that conversion between EUR3 billion EBITDA and EUR1 billion this year, I think it’s a very strong conversion. If you go back to 2012, 2013, 2014 there’s a couple of features that certainly have changed in our business since then. The first thing is that our level of CapEx now, obviously, is much higher than it was back in those years when we were, obviously, minding our CapEx, or constraining our CapEx. The second thing to bear in mind is that our debt levels, our leverage levels are higher now. So I think in 2014, we would have been at a net debt number of about EUR2.5 billion, today, we’re obviously on track to be at EUR6 billion or below at the end of this year. So, obviously, that drives the higher gross debt level, drives up our interest cost. And then, the other feature, I think, is that our effective tax rate has gradually gone up over the last number of years as the mix of earnings we make in dollars has increased.

Thanks Senan. I’m just going to conclude things then. We’re just right on the time, it’s 9:45. I just want to thank you all for your time and your attention here this morning in the room, and, indeed, those who have taken the time to watch us down the line. The next time we’re going to talk to you officially, of course, is our interim results, our IMS statement, excuse me in November. And if there’s any questions, or any things that have not been addressed fully, I’d ask you to please contact our IR department. Frank Heisterkamp, our Head of Investor Relations, is in the room here at the moment. We are happy to again share with you more detail, if you want to do that as well. So, thank you again for your attention. Thank you for your time. And we will talk to you all again in November. Thank you very much.