Building materials group CRH is expected to report profits of close on €400 million (over £310 million) when its reports its 1998 financial results tomorrow.
However, it will come as no great surprise if CRH comfortably exceeds those forecasts, and certainly the performance of the CRH share price - up 60 cents to €16.90 last week and up over €2 since the beginning of the year - suggests that the market is expecting another solid performance.
Nevertheless, anybody expecting any news on CRH's interest in the Scandinavian cement group Scancem is likely to be disappointed. CRH is one of up to eight European groups who are expected to have lodged bids for Scancem by the deadline for bids which expires today.
CRH will face strong competition for Scancem, with bids expected to be submitted by British giant RMC, the French group Lafarge, and three German groups - Heidelberger, Holderbank and Dyckerhoff.
It is not yet clear whether CRH will bid for all of Scancem - at a likely cost of £1.2 billion - or simply confine itself to a bid for Scancem's British subsidiary, Castle Cement, which has a quarter of the British cement market. Castle Cement alone is likely to be cost well in excess of £450 million.
The Ibstock acquisition is by far CRH's biggest buy, but will be dwarfed by Scancem if CRH is successful. The acquisition of Ibstock and the move for Scancem clearly indicate that CRH's previous strategy of small to mediumsized bolt-on acquisitions is shifting towards larger acquisitions.
CRH's results are expected to reflect the strong growth in two of its key markets - Ireland and North America, where construction output has soared in line with the strength of the economies.
The strength of demand in the Irish market is indicated by CRH's decision to double the capacity of its Limerick cement plant with a new 850,000 tonne kiln, despite the competition from the Sean Quinn group and the planned Lagan Group cement plant in the midlands.
Meanwhile, CRH has won the plaudits of investment bank Merrill Lynch, which has tipped the Irish company, Lafarge and Portland Valderrivas as the three companies in the European building materials sector who are most likely to outperform their peer group.
CRH is described by Merrill Lynch "as a clear and probably the most notable example of how successful deployment of cash glow can reap rewards".
"Even though it has never strayed beyond so-called `boring low growth' building materials, the group has expanded outside its domestic Irish market and has generated excellent returns on its investment," Merrill Lynch states.
The investment bank states that stocks exposed to the US, Spain and Ireland were the 1998 outperformers, and CRH has sizeable interests in all three economies.
