CRH public limited company (CRH): what the price requires

At today's price, CRH public limited company (CRH) is priced for +15.3% growth. boothcheck doesn't publish a fair value or a price target; it shows what the price assumes, so you can judge whether that bar is too high.

Generated: 2026-07-14 · Exported: 2026-07-16 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/CRH

Headline

FieldValue
TickerCRH
CompanyCRH public limited company
Current price$102.24/sh
CompositionEssential Materials 28% / Road Solutions 46% / Building & Infrastructure Solutions 13% / Outdoor Living Solutions 14%

What The Price Requires (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

FieldValue
Inversion basiswhole-company
Operating margin needed7.8%
Operating margin today11.3%
Margin compression implied-3.5pp
Implied growth15.3%
Multiple paid22x operating income

The operating-margin requirement is derived from the framework's value band at year 12, a separately labeled basis from the headline growth/duration solve.

Solve inputs: computed at a 8.7% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage; each 1pp of cost of capital moves the implied operating-profit growth ~7.3pp.

How unusual the bet is: within-range

ReferenceValue
vs own history+0.84σ
cohort percentile (of 76 peers)63
sustained it ~5 years at this level50%
implied end-window share0%

Valuation X-Ray

The price is justified by relative-multiple and growth-DCF; earnings-power land below the price.

How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.

FamilyMedian price/FVModelsReads
Asset1.46x4expensive
Earnings3.42x4expensive
Relative1.11x3expensive
Growth0.74x3justifies

Families that justify the price: Relative, Growth Families that call it expensive: Earnings

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 7.2%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=14)

ModelFamilyFVPrice/FVApplicableMethodology
DCF Perpetual GrowthGrowth$162.720.63xyesFCF base $3.1B, growth 7% (input: historical growth), terminal g 4.0%, WACC 7.2%, 6yr projection
DCF Exit MultipleGrowth$138.850.74xyesExit EV/EBITDA: 12.7x / 14.7x / 16.7x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 6yr
Relative ValuationRelative$91.941.11xyesP/E 18x (static sector reference · 2026-04), scenarios: 15.0x / 18.0x / 21.0x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 12x
Simple DDMGrowth——no—
Two-Stage DDMGrowth——no—
Simple Excess ReturnAsset$59.371.72xyesBV/sh $34.51, ROE (TTM) 15.9%, ke 9.3%
Two-Stage Excess ReturnAsset$76.881.33xyes5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3%
Discounted Future Market CapGrowth$103.320.99xyesRev $38.1B, growth 7% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 1.5x / 1.8x / 2.1x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 8x)
Growth-Adjusted P/ERelative——no—
Margin TrajectoryGrowth——no—
Earnings Power ValueEarnings$66.761.53xyesNormalized EBIT (3y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $4.92B × (1−21%) / WACC 7.2% → EPV (no growth)
Residual IncomeAsset$78.231.31xyesBV $34.51 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 15.9% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 8.8%/yr
Graham NumberAsset$64.691.58xyes√(22.5 × EPS $5.39 × BVPS $34.51) — Graham's conservative floor
EV/EBITDA RelativeRelative$78.581.30xyesEBITDA $5.96B × sector EV/EBITDA 12.0x
FCF YieldEarnings$20.095.09xyesFCF $2999.0M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity
SBC-Adj FCF YieldEarnings$17.835.73xyesSBC-adj FCF $2.86B (FCF $3.00B − SBC $0.14B) capitalized at Kₑ
Ben Graham FormulaEarnings$4.5222.62xyesEPS $5.39 × (8.5 + 2×-3.8%) × (4.4 / 5.3%) (excluded from median)
ROIC-Justified P/BAsset——no—
P/Sales SectorRelative$142.340.72xyesRevenue $38.06B × sector P/S 2.5x
PEG Fair ValueRelative——no—
Earnings YieldEarnings$58.271.75xyesEPS $5.39 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%)
Funds From Operations MultipleRelative——no—
Clinical Phase NPVGrowth——no—
MertonAsset——no—
V5 Mechanical———no—

Solvency

FieldValue
Net debt$18.2b
Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax)5.78x
Net debt / operating income (pre-tax)4.57x
Interest coverage5.0x
Share count CAGR (buyback)-3.5%
Burning cashno

Bullet Takeaways

Bull Case

Start with what the price is paying for, then check it against what the business has shown. At today's level the market pays roughly 23 times company-wide operating income, a multiple that assumes operating profit grows around 18.6% a year for five years. That is a demanding pace, well above what CRH has historically delivered, so the bull case has to explain why the next five years look different from the last. The answer is the US infrastructure cycle, and it is a real one.

CRH has repositioned itself around American public works. Road Solutions is its largest segment, and the company is leveraged to a spending wave that is still mostly ahead of it: roughly half of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act highway funds remain to be deployed, and state transportation budgets are projected to rise 6% in 2026. In its own filings the company reports Road Solutions revenue running 7% ahead of the prior year, with readymixed concrete volumes and prices both up. Aggregates and asphalt are heavy, local, and hard to ship economically, which means whoever owns the quarry near the job site wins the job. That is a durable local-monopoly economics that does not show up in a simple sector multiple.

The recent results support the optimism, and the capital allocation reinforces it. First-quarter 2026 revenue rose 9% to $7.4 billion with adjusted EBITDA margin expanding 70 basis points, and the company reaffirmed full-year guidance of $8.1 to $8.5 billion in adjusted EBITDA and diluted earnings per share of $5.60 to $6.05. The Arcosa acquisition adds 109 quarries and yards and roughly 35 million tons of annual aggregates shipments to the US platform, with $175 million of targeted run-rate synergies. Alongside the deal, CRH raised its quarterly dividend 5% to $0.39 and added a $300 million buyback, and the share count has been falling around 3.5% a year. The bull case is that an infrastructure tailwind, local pricing power, and disciplined capital return justify a multiple that looks rich only against the company's slower past.

Bear Case

The bear case starts with how the company spends its money, because CRH grows by acquiring, and the acquisitions are getting large. On June 22, 2026 it agreed to buy Arcosa for $8.5 billion in all-cash, at 11.5 times forward EBITDA. An all-cash deal of that size, layered on a balance sheet that already carries more than $18 billion of net debt, is the kind of capital allocation that works only if the synergies and the cycle both cooperate. The company is paying a full multiple for a competitor at what may be a high point in US infrastructure spending, and the $175 million of promised synergies are a forward estimate, not a banked result. Buy near the top of a cycle with borrowed money and the deal's economics rest on the cycle not turning.

That is the second structural risk: CRH is a cyclical business, and the price assumes the cycle stays kind. Demand for aggregates, asphalt and concrete tracks construction activity, and the company tells investors directly that "economic uncertainty and rising interest rates can exacerbate negative trends in construction activity, including when current and/or prospective customers are unable to obtain credit or issue bonds." The priced-in roughly 18.6% annual operating growth runs well above what CRH has actually delivered, and only about 45% of comparable fast-growers sustained even five years at that pace. The price is paying for an above-trend run from a company whose end markets are inherently lumpy.

The valuation math is where the bear and bull cases meet on the same facts. The asset-value methods and the earnings-power methods both say the price is expensive; only the relative-multiple and growth-DCF views support it. State the requirement plainly: to hold the multiple, CRH has to compound operating profit near 18.6% a year for five years, and if growth fades toward the mid-single digits the business has historically produced, the multiple compresses toward where the asset and earnings-power methods land, which is well below today's price. The balance sheet is not fragile, interest coverage runs around 6.5 times and the company is not burning cash, so this is not a distress story. It is a cyclical company priced for a sustained boom, with a large debt-funded acquisition raising the stakes on the boom continuing.

Valuation

Today's price embeds a specific bet. Read backward, it pays roughly 23 times company-wide operating income, which is the same as assuming operating profit grows about 18.6% a year for five years before fading. Keep those figures approximate; they are one solve, not a measurement. The bet is notable for two reasons: that pace runs well above what CRH has actually delivered, and only about 45% of comparable fast-growers held a pace like it for even five years. The price is underwriting an above-trend run, not the company's demonstrated mid-single-digit growth.

For a multi-segment business the better lens than one blended multiple is where the methods sit by family, and they split. The relative-multiple methods, comparing CRH against the building-materials sector, land near or below the price. The growth-DCF methods land just below it. But the asset-value methods, anchored on book value plus profitability, and the earnings-power methods, which capitalize current cash generation without growth, both land well below the price. So the pattern is mixed: the methods that credit growth and peer multiples reach the price, the methods that value the business as it stands today do not. That spread is the durability premium the market is paying for the infrastructure cycle, isolated so the reader can see exactly what is being assumed.

The segments are not a single business, which is why the blended view understates the quality of the core. Road Solutions, the largest piece, sells heavy local materials into public-works demand, with revenue running 7% ahead of the prior year in the company's own reporting. Essential Materials, aggregates and cement, carries similar local pricing power. Those are the segments that earn the premium; Building and Infrastructure Solutions and Outdoor Living are smaller and more exposed to discretionary demand. Solvency bounds the downside without removing the cyclical risk: net debt above $18 billion is real, but interest coverage around 6.5 times is comfortable, the company is generating cash rather than burning it, and a falling share count shows capital returning to holders. The Arcosa deal will test that comfort, since an $8.5 billion all-cash purchase adds leverage at the same time it adds the aggregates the bull case prizes.

Catalysts

The defining catalyst is the Arcosa acquisition, announced June 22, 2026 at $150 per share in cash, valuing the target at roughly $8.5 billion, or 11.5 times forward EBITDA, with $175 million of targeted run-rate cost synergies by year three. The deal adds a US aggregates platform of 109 quarries and yards and about 35 million tons of annual shipments, deepening CRH's exposure to highway, rail and utility infrastructure. Closing, integration, and the pace of synergy capture are the things to watch; an all-cash deal of this size is the clearest near-term swing factor for both the leverage profile and the growth story.

The macro catalyst is US infrastructure spending, and it is running in CRH's favor. State transportation budgets are projected to rise 6% in 2026, and roughly half of the IIJA highway funds remain undeployed, which gives the Road Solutions and Essential Materials segments a multi-year runway of public demand. CRH has been pruning at the same time, agreeing to three divestitures of non-core businesses for a total of $1.9 billion year to date, sharpening the portfolio toward the infrastructure core.

On the company itself, the Q1 2026 print on April 30 beat expectations with revenue of $7.4 billion, up 9%, and the company reaffirmed full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance of $8.1 to $8.5 billion and diluted EPS of $5.60 to $6.05. Management paired the results with a 5% dividend increase to $0.39 a share and a $300 million buyback. Analysts carry a mean price target near $143. The next earnings print is the test of whether margin expansion and the reaffirmed full-year guidance hold as the year develops.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Americas Materials Solutions (reported)

Americas Building Solutions (reported)

International Solutions (reported)

Methodology Note

Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.

Sources

CRH FY2025 10-K, accession 0001628280-26-009043 · CRH Arcosa announcement, June 22 2026 · IIJA funding coverage, 2026 · CRH Q1 2026 results · CRH capital return announcement, 2026 · CRH solvency, latest filings · CRH 2026 portfolio actions · analyst consensus, 2026

View the full interactive CRH report on boothcheck