Acquisition

CRH PLC
10 August 2001

August 10, 2001

                     CRH ANNOUNCES MATERIALS INVESTMENTS

                     IN NORTH AMERICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST

CRH, the international building materials group, announces two deals which
extend the geographic reach of its North American and European Materials
Divisions. In North America, the Oldcastle Materials Group has acquired Hallet
Materials Inc. and Des Moines Asphalt & Paving Company Inc. for a
consideration of US$74.9 million (euro 83.2 million) including debt acquired.
In the Middle East, the Europe Materials Division has acquired a 25% stake in
the Mashav group in Israel. The investment has been made by a new company
established for this purpose, with CRH providing equity finance of US$47.8
million (euro 53.7 million) and FIBI Investment House plc providing a further
US$97.1 million (euro 109.1 million) in preference capital that is
non-recourse to CRH. As part of this transaction, CRH has secured a call
option, exercisable before January 2004, to acquire an additional 25% of
Mashav.

Commenting on these deals, Liam O'Mahony, Chief Executive, said: 'These
investments are very much in line with the strategy of both our Materials
Divisions. In North America, the Hallet and Des Moines businesses provide an
excellent platform for the Materials Group to enter the Iowa market which has
good demand prospects underpinned by strong TEA-21 driven highway programmes.
The investment in Mashav is our first move into the growing Middle East
building materials market and represents another step in the Europe Materials
Division's strategy to build strong market positions in primary building
materials in selected European and related markets to the east.'

Hallet Materials and Des Moines Asphalt & Paving

Hallet Materials and Des Moines Asphalt & Paving were two unrelated companies
under separate ownership and both headquartered in Des Moines. Hallet
Materials is an aggregates company with over 80 million tons of permitted
reserves. The company operates in the central and western Iowa markets and
produced 4.4 million tons of aggregates in 2000. Des Moines Asphalt & Paving
is central Iowa's leading asphalt paving contractor, producing 0.53 million
tons of asphalt in 2000. Combined adjusted trading profit of these two
businesses in 2000, after depreciation of US$2.9 million, amounted to US$12.6
million on sales of US$57.3 million.

Mashav

Mashav is the holding company for Nesher Cement, the sole producer of cement
in Israel. From two state-of-the-art dry process production lines at its main
facility in Ramla and a single semi-dry process plant at Har Tuv, Nesher
supplies cement throughout Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Both facilities
have access to substantial raw material reserves. Nesher also operates a
clinker grinding plant at Haifa where the company has permits to modernise its
recently closed wet process clinker plant. In 2000, Nesher sold 5.7 million
tonnes of cement.

Mashav, which also has a 50% interest in a logistics and transportation
company, reported consolidated sales of euro 428.3 million and trading profits
before depreciation of euro 123.6 million in 2000. Pretax profits amounted to
euro 65.0 million after a depreciation charge of euro 48.0 million and
interest expense of euro 10.6 million.



Contact CRH at Dublin 404 1000 ([phone])

Liam O'Mahony, Chief Executive

Harry Sheridan, Finance Director

Myles Lee, General Manager-Finance





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