CRH has a tendency to take the market by surprise and spring a placing to raise some money. So last week's €345 million placing by the group shouldn't really come as a major surprise. CRH had a market ready and waiting to buy into a company and, with Elan and Kerry, can genuinely claim to be a serious blue-chip investment for international investors.

CRH has been more successful than most in attracting a geographically diverse investor base. Before last week's placing, 60 per cent of the shares were pretty evenly split between Irish, British and US institutions, with about 12 per cent held by Europeans.

With CRH now a far larger player in Europe, especially following the Finncementti/Rudus acquisitions in Finland and eastern Europe, getting more Europeans on to the share register was the priority this time around. The €18 a share placing price might be almost 10 per cent lower than the price before the first-half results were released and the book-building began - but it is still over 14 times Davy's earnings forecast for the current year.

And didn't Davy's and Warburg do very nicely out of the placing. Expenses of the placing amounted to over €7 million, presumably spilt between the two brokers.