A director of CRH, Mr Brian Hill, has made a profit of more than £480,000 after buying shares at an option price and then selling some of the shares into the market.

Mr Hill has told the stock exchange that, on March 4th, he bought 206,360 shares at an option price of 230.66p and on the same day sold 100,000 shares into the market at 957p.

The cash profit on the transactions was £481,000 while Mr Hill has also made a paper profit of more than £772,000 on the 106,360 shares he bought at the option price but did not sell into the market. Following the transactions, Mr Hill has 294,483 CRH shares which are worth £2.78 million at yesterday's closing price of 945p.