CRH has bought a 50 per cent stake in American Cement Company (ACC) for $50 million in cash via its US subsidiary Oldcastle Materials.
ACC has been formed to develop and operate a cement plant in central Florida.
"Oldcastle Materials' partners in ACC are the shareholders of Trap Rock Industries, a major regional construction materials and contracting company in New Jersey," CRH added in a statement.
Senior debt to finance the installation of the facility will be provided to ACC by Oldcastle Materials.
"The new cement plant and associated facilities, for which planning and permitting approvals have been received, will be located in Sumterville, close to Orlando and Tampa in Florida, on an ACC-owned deposit which contains over 150 million tonnes of high quality limestone reserves," CRH said.
The plant will have an annual capacity of 1.1 million tonnes, and is expected to begin production in late 2008.
CRH said Florida was one of the strongest construction markets in the U.S. and had very positive long-term demographic growth trends.
"The outlook for the Florida construction sector is excellent and, with up to 40 per cent of total annual cement consumption in the state currently being imported, we believe there is real need for the local production capacity which ACC's new facility will add," Tom Hill, CEO of Oldcastle, said.
CRH's Europe Materials Division produces almost 13 million tonnes of cement annually at facilities in Finland, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland, Tunisia and Ukraine.
"While the CRH Products & Distribution Division in the Americas already has significant operations in Florida, this is Oldcastle Materials' first investment in the region and is an entry into the cement sector in the US," CRH said.