A wet US autumn and a wide reaching cost-cutting programme are likely to push CRH’s pre-tax profits down by more than 50 per cent.

The Dublin-based company said that it expected pre-tax profits for the year to fall to as low as €730m ($1.09bn), compared to €1.6bn for 2008, and for group earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation to fall by about a third from €2.6bn.