The company has said that revenues for the first two months of 2011 showed good improvement on 2010 figure and benefitted from more favourable weather conditions. Sale moderated in March and April but like for like sales in April were still 6% ahead of 2010 levels.
In a statement, the company said, “In our Europe Materials business, operations in those European countries experiencing austerity measures – Ireland, Portugal and Spain - continue to face very challenging market conditions. We have seen more positive trends in construction activity in our more stable developed markets in Switzerland and Finland, while in Poland and the developing economies to the east demand is picking up well.
“Cumulative like-for-like sales are up 4% compared with the first four months of 2010, and we continue to progress the implementation of price increases to recover higher energy input costs.
“To date, our European operations in materials, products and distribution have seen a cumulative like for like sales increase of 8%. We expect half-year sales and EBITDA to be ahead of 2010.”
