CRH Q3 2026: EPS fell 16% to $1.86 on a $178M Philippines write-down; full-year profit guide cut by $0.8B

CRH, the largest supplier of building materials in North America (crushed stone, cement, asphalt, concrete and pipes), sold more in its third quarter of 2026 but earned less. Total revenues rose 3.0% to $11,396 million, helped by higher prices for aggregates and asphalt and by businesses it bought. Net income attributable to CRH shareholders fell 17.2% to $1,245 million, and diluted earnings per share (EPS, profit divided by the share count) fell 15.8% to $1.86 from $2.21. Most of the drop came from write-downs, not from the quarries and plants: a $178 million goodwill impairment on the Philippines business and an impairment of an investment in China. With the results, CRH cut its full-year profit forecast sharply, completed its $8.5 billion purchase of Arcosa on October 23, and announced a new buyback of up to $6 billion running to 2030.

Operating margin is the share of revenue left after running the business, before interest and tax. Total company net income, including the share owned by minority partners, was $1,184 million, down 22%; the figure attributable to CRH fell less because minority partners in the Philippines business absorbed part of that write-down.

Where the money came from: the three segments

Americas Materials Solutions (quarries, cement, asphalt, ready-mixed concrete and paving) is the profit engine, with 59% of the quarter's Adjusted EBITDA. Aggregates, the crushed stone, sand and gravel used in almost all construction, rose 5% in price and 2% in volume. Asphalt prices rose 7% while volumes fell 2% because of "adverse weather and divestitures". Cement was weaker: volumes flat and prices 2% lower, which the filing puts down to "weakness in residential demand and the impact of geographic mix-effects". Revenue growth came mostly from acquisitions (+$373 million, including the 2025 purchase of Eco Material Technologies); organic revenue, from businesses CRH owned in both years, rose only $65 million (about 1%). On an organic basis Adjusted EBITDA fell $49 million (about 3%), so costs rose faster than prices in the businesses CRH already had.

Americas Building Solutions (pipes, utility vaults, patio and garden products) lost 18% of its Adjusted EBITDA. The filing gives two reasons: "the non-recurrence of the prior year gain on the disposal of certain land assets" and cost inflation. That land gain is visible in the income statement: gains on disposal of long-lived assets fell from $110 million to $19 million. Revenue in Building & Infrastructure Solutions rose 16% on energy, water and data-center work, while Outdoor Living Solutions fell 15% on weak housing demand and the businesses CRH sold.

International Solutions (mainly Europe, plus Australia and the Philippines) was the bright spot. Aggregates prices rose 5% and volumes 9%; cement prices rose 6%. Adjusted EBITDA rose 6% and the margin widened by 1.1 points, though this is also the segment holding the impaired Philippines unit.

What the headline numbers hide

• The fall in EPS is mostly write-downs and tax, not operations. CRH wrote off all $178 million of goodwill on its Philippines unit (goodwill is the premium paid over the value of a business's assets when it was bought), citing "challenging market conditions which had an impact on growth prospects". It also impaired its equity investment in China, which turned income from such investments into a $41 million loss (from a $26 million profit). Those write-downs are not deductible for tax, which is the main reason the tax rate jumped to 29% from 22%. CRH's pre-impairment EPS of $2.09 strips out its share of both ($0.23 a share).
• The prior year had a land-sale gain that did not come back. Setting aside impairments, the $49 million of costs for the new Velocity restructuring program, $4 million of deal costs and the gains on asset sales in both years, pretax income was about $1,931 million against $1,864 million a year earlier, up roughly 4%. That is the closest the filing lets us get to "underlying" profit, and it rose modestly.
• The adjusted measure changed this quarter. CRH now leaves "substantial acquisition and integration-related costs" and "transformation-related costs" out of Adjusted EBITDA. That added $53 million in Q3 2026 against $13 million restated into Q3 2025. On the old basis, Adjusted EBITDA would have been about $2,629 million against $2,682 million, a 2% decline rather than flat. With Arcosa integration and a $400 million Velocity program ahead, expect these exclusions to grow.
• Costs are rising faster than prices in places. Energy costs rose 19% and haulage (trucking) costs 14% on fuel inflation, per the 10-Q. Gross margin held at 38.8%, but organic Adjusted EBITDA fell about $95 million across the three segments combined (−$49 million, −$80 million and +$34 million).
• Cash conversion is a little weaker. Operating cash flow for the first nine months was $2,271 million against net income of $2,515 million (0.90x), down from $2,710 million (0.98x) a year earlier. Third-quarter operating cash flow, derived from the year-to-date figures, was $1,758 million against $1,991 million. Receivables at September 30 were $7,136 million, up 2.5% on a year earlier, roughly in line with sales, so this is not a collections problem.
• Buybacks did little for EPS. CRH repurchased only $86 million of shares in the quarter (802,429 shares, all in July) against $286 million a year earlier, as it saved cash for Arcosa. Diluted shares were 1.3% lower, so fewer shares added only about a point to EPS.

On balance the quarter is understated: reported EPS fell 16%, but before the impairments it fell 8%, and pretax income excluding impairments, restructuring costs and asset-sale gains rose about 4%.

Takeaway: The 16% drop in CRH's EPS overstates the damage, since most of it is a non-cash write-down of a Philippines business and a China investment. The more important number is the guidance cut: Adjusted EBITDA for 2026 is now $7.8–8.0 billion, down from $8.1–8.5 billion, even though the new range adds a quarter of Arcosa. That says the core business will finish the year weaker than CRH expected in July, because of cost inflation and housing.

Did last time's read hold up?

Our Q2 2026 report said to watch three things. Cement pricing did not recover: Americas cement prices fell 2% after a 1% fall in Q2, again blamed on regional mix and housing. Building Solutions kept losing EBITDA organically ($80 million this quarter, though most of that is the missing land-sale gain). On Arcosa, we now know the financing: a $2.5 billion term loan, a $3.3 billion bridge loan and cash on hand. Buybacks slowed to $86 million instead of restarting, but the new $6 billion program through 2030 sets out how they will resume. Our Q2 note that the second half had to deliver about two-thirds of the year's net income turned out to be the weak point: the full-year target came down by $0.8 billion.

Outlook

Management cut its 2026 guidance, citing "the earlier than anticipated completion of the Arcosa Acquisition, the inflationary cost backdrop and a more challenging residential construction market":

About $0.4 billion of the $0.8 billion net income cut at the midpoint comes from items the old range did not include: about $0.2 billion of impairments and about $0.2 billion of acquisition and integration costs (from CRH's own reconciliation). The other part is a weaker business plus higher interest costs (now about $0.8 billion for the year) from the Arcosa debt. The new guidance assumes a 27% tax rate and about 670.5 million diluted shares. CRH expects housing to "remain weak in the near-term" but describes demand from public infrastructure and reindustrialization as favorable, and calls its 2027 outlook "positive".

Velocity, the new program to simplify CRH's organization and make more use of technology and data, is expected to cost about $400 million and deliver about $400 million of annual savings by the end of 2028. CRH has booked $49 million of those costs so far. The quarterly dividend rises 5% to $0.39 a share.

Our read: net debt was $15.0 billion at September 30, before CRH drew $5.8 billion of term and bridge loans to buy Arcosa, so borrowing will be noticeably higher at year-end. The $6 billion buyback is therefore a plan for 2027–2030 more than for this quarter. Watch three things in Q4: whether Americas aggregates pricing stays around +5% while energy and haulage costs rise in the teens; how much Arcosa contributes in its first partial quarter, and how large the integration and Velocity costs are that the new adjusted measures leave out; and whether CRH refinances the bridge loan into longer-term bonds.

Source: CRH Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026 (filed October 29, 2026). The guidance tables, Adjusted EBITDA reconciliation, pre-impairment EPS and the new buyback program come from CRH's Q3 2026 earnings release, filed as Exhibit 99.1 to its October 29, 2026 Form 8-K. Q3-only cash flow, dividend and buyback figures are derived by subtracting the six-month figures in the Q2 2026 10-Q from the nine-month figures.