CRH Q2 2026: revenue +5.6% to $10.8bn and diluted EPS $2.21 (+13.9%), lifted by 5% higher Americas aggregates prices and a $266M pre-tax gain on selling non-core units; FY26 guidance reaffirmed as CRH agrees to buy Arcosa for $8.5bn.
Revenue
$10.8B
+5.6% YoY
Net income
$1.5B
+12.7% YoY
Diluted EPS
$2.21
+13.9% YoY
Operating margin
19.3%
Overview
CRH, the largest building-materials supplier in North America, made more money in its second quarter of 2026. Total revenues rose 5.6% to $10,777 million and net income attributable to CRH shareholders rose 12.7% to $1,486 million, or $2.21 per diluted share (up from $1.94). Profit grew faster than sales for two reasons. First, higher prices, mainly for aggregates, and newly acquired businesses lifted operating profit. Second, CRH booked a $266 million pre-tax gain from selling non-core businesses. That second part won't repeat. It also came with a higher tax bill, because the effective tax rate jumped from 24% to 31%, which the filing says was "mainly driven by" those sales.
The quarter was busy for deal-making. CRH sold three non-core units for about $1.9 billion in total (lawn and garden, construction accessories and MoistureShield). It bought 11 businesses for $1.1 billion, the largest being Axius Water for $0.7 billion. It also agreed to buy Arcosa for about $8.5 billion in enterprise value, meaning the price for the whole company including its debt. CRH has paused its share buyback while it prepares to pay for that deal.
Key metrics — Q2 2026 (three months ended June 30)
Metric
Q2 2026
Q2 2025
YoY Change
Total revenues
$10,777M
$10,206M
+5.6%
Gross margin
39.8%
39.4%
+0.4 pts
Operating income
$2,079M
$1,935M
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*Adjusted EBITDA is CRH's own non-GAAP measure (GAAP is the standard US accounting rulebook). It is profit before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (the accounting charges that spread the cost of plants, quarries and acquired businesses over time), and it also leaves out impairments and gains or losses on divestitures. Management uses it to judge how the operations are running. Operating margin is the share of revenue left after running the business, before interest and tax.
Why the first half looks so different from the second quarter
Construction slows sharply in winter, when roads can't be paved and concrete is hard to pour, so CRH's first quarter is always its weakest. Subtracting Q2 from the six-month figures shows that Q1 2026 had revenue of about $7,370 million and a net loss attributable to CRH of $176 million (Q1 2025: a $94 million loss). Most of the year's profit therefore comes from April through October.
Six months ended June 30
2026
2025
YoY Change
Total revenues
$18,147M
$16,962M
+7.0%
Net income attributable to CRH
$1,310M
$1,225M
+6.9%
Diluted EPS
$1.93
$1.78
+8.4%
Diluted EPS before impairment*
$2.01
$1.78
+12.9%
Adjusted EBITDA*
$3,213M
$2,958M
+8.6%
Adjusted EBITDA margin*
17.7%
17.4%
+0.3 pts
The six-month figures include a $48 million goodwill write-down taken in Q1 on the construction accessories business before it was sold. Goodwill is the premium paid when that business was originally acquired. The write-down is why CRH also reports EPS "before impairment."
Segment performance (Q2)
CRH breaks its growth into four parts: acquisitions, divestitures, currency and "organic" growth. Organic growth is what the businesses it already owned did on their own.
Segment
Revenue
YoY
Organic revenue change
Adj. EBITDA
YoY
EBITDA margin (vs. Q2 2025)
Americas Materials Solutions
$4,957M
+10%
+$170M
$1,384M
+12%
27.9% (27.5%)
Americas Building Solutions
$2,117M
−2%
+$145M
$462M
−8%
21.8% (23.2%)
International Solutions
$3,703M
+5%
+$53M
$781M
+8%
21.1% (20.4%)
Americas Materials Solutions (quarries, cement, asphalt, ready-mixed concrete, paving) is the profit engine and the segment to watch. Aggregates are the crushed stone, sand and gravel used in almost all construction. Their prices rose 5% and volumes 2%. Cement did worse: volumes fell 2% due to "adverse weather in certain markets and subdued residential demand," and prices were 1% lower because of "adverse geographic mix-effects." That means more of the cement was sold in regions where prices are lower, not that prices were cut like-for-like. Essential Materials revenue rose 20%, helped by the 2025 acquisition of Eco Material Technologies (a supplier of fly ash and other cement substitutes). On the road-building side, asphalt prices rose 6% on 3% more volume, and paving and construction revenue rose 5%. Of the $143 million increase in segment EBITDA, $72 million was organic and $69 million came from acquisitions.
Americas Building Solutions (precast concrete, pipe, utility enclosures, outdoor-living products) is where results were mixed. Building & Infrastructure Solutions revenue rose 10% on "strong performance in the energy and data infrastructure markets," which includes data centers and utility networks. Outdoor Living fell 7% because of the lawn and garden sale and weak housing demand. The divestitures took $192 million off revenue and $37 million off EBITDA. Even so, the businesses CRH kept lost $22 million of EBITDA organically, which the filing puts down to "cost inflation and subdued residential demand." The margin fell 1.4 points. This is the one segment where the underlying trend, not just the effect of the sales, points down.
International Solutions (Europe and Australia) grew EBITDA 8%. Aggregates volumes rose 10% and cement volumes 6%, with prices up 2% and 4% respectively. A weaker US dollar added $89 million of revenue when converted from local currencies. Organic revenue growth was only about 1.5%, so most of the headline gain came from acquisitions and currency, with divestitures pulling the other way.
Takeaway: The 12.7% rise in net income overstates the underlying improvement, because it includes one-off gains from selling businesses. The steadier measure, Adjusted EBITDA, rose 6.7%, and only about half of that growth was organic. The core of the business is still healthy: Americas aggregates prices rose 5% and the materials segment widened its margin despite a 16% rise in energy costs. The weak spot is housing-exposed building products, where the businesses CRH kept lost EBITDA even after excluding the divestitures.
Costs
Cost of revenues rose 4.9% in the quarter. The filing lists energy costs up 16% (higher activity, inflation and acquisitions), labor up 4%, and depreciation and amortization up 8%. Haulage costs, meaning the cost of trucking materials to customers, rose 21% within selling and administrative expenses. Pricing still ran ahead of these costs: gross margin widened by 0.4 points to 39.8%. In other words, CRH is passing inflation on to customers, though not by a wide margin.
Cash, debt and shareholder returns
Buybacks: CRH bought back about 2.5 million shares for $0.3 billion in Q2, and $0.6 billion in the first half, the same as in 2025. The last buyback tranche finished on July 28, bringing the year-to-date total to $0.7 billion. No new tranche has been started because of the Arcosa deal, and CRH says it will "reevaluate" buybacks later. The diluted weighted-average share count fell to 668.8 million from 677.7 million a year earlier.
Dividend: $0.39 per quarter, declared three times so far in 2026. That is an annualized increase of 5% on 2025.
Debt: Net debt (borrowings minus cash) was $15.4 billion at June 30, up from $14.2 billion at year-end. The increase came from acquisitions, capital spending and returns to shareholders, partly offset by the sale proceeds. CRH has arranged a $5.8 billion bridge loan, a short-term loan meant to be replaced by longer-term financing, to help pay for Arcosa. Its long-term credit rating is BBB+ at S&P, and $4.5 billion of committed credit lines are still undrawn.
Operating cash flow in the first half fell to $513 million from $719 million. The filing blames working-capital timing tied to the divestitures and the taxes owed on them. That is worth checking again when the second-half results arrive.
Outlook
The earnings release published the same day (8-K Exhibit 99.1, July 30, 2026) reaffirmed full-year 2026 guidance:
2026 guidance
Low
High
Net income
$3.9bn
$4.1bn
Adjusted EBITDA*
$8.1bn
$8.5bn
Diluted EPS
$5.60
$6.05
Capital expenditure
$2.7bn
$2.9bn (cut from $2.8–3.0bn)
The release also raised the midpoint for expected income tax to $1.4 billion from $1.3 billion, "reflecting the tax impact of recent divestitures." Holding the net income range steady despite that higher tax bill suggests the sale gains are roughly covering it. Management expects infrastructure spending and reindustrialization (new factories, data centers and energy projects) to support demand. It expects home repair and remodeling to be "resilient" and new home building to stay "subdued." The Arcosa deal is expected to close in Q1 2027, so it does not affect 2026 guidance.
Our read: After the first half, CRH has $1.33 billion of net income against a full-year target of $3.9–4.1 billion. That means the second half, led by the seasonally strong third quarter, has to deliver roughly two-thirds of the year, which is normal for this business. Aggregates pricing is the variable that matters most, and it was solid at +5% in Q2. That was better than the +3% for the first half as a whole, which the filing said was held back by geographic and project mix. Watch three things next quarter:
whether cement pricing stops being dragged down by regional mix;
whether the Building Solutions segment can stop losing EBITDA on an organic basis;
how much debt CRH takes on for Arcosa, and when buybacks restart.
Source: CRH Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 (filed July 30, 2026). The full-year guidance, the Q2 buyback share count and the tax guidance change come from CRH's Q2 2026 earnings release, filed as Exhibit 99.1 to its July 30, 2026 Form 8-K.