By Adria Calatayud

CRH PLC said Thursday that first-half pretax profit doubled, helped by a revenue recovery, and that it expects earnings for the second half of the year to be ahead of last year's result amid an improving market outlook.

The Irish building-materials supplier posted a pretax profit for the first six months of the year of $1.05 billion compared with $518 million for the same period last year. Net profit rose to $785 million from $403 million a year before.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for the first half rose 25% to $2.00 billion. CRH had guided for first-half Ebitda to be well ahead of the year-earlier period.

The company said higher sales volumes and cost rationalization helped it to offset the impact of cost inflation.

First-half revenue increased to $14.04 billion from $12.22 billion a year earlier.

The board declared an interim dividend of 23 cents a share, up 4.5% on year.

Write to Adria Calatayud at adria.calatayud@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

08-26-21 0231ET