Residential continues to be subdued. Albert referred to that. And we certainly think it’s going to be the back end of ’24 before we see any improvement on that front. And when you look at that altogether from an activity level in ’24, we’d expect activity levels across the US really approximately kind of flattish into ’24. Now on the pricing side, we do expect we’re exiting this year with good momentum on the pricing side. We’re looking forward again in the US to kind of double-digit price increases in 2024. And that’s a combination of kind of price increases early in the year but also similar to this year midyear prices coming through as well. Maybe specifically on the cement side in terms of organic capacity, I think we’re well positioned from that perspective, Anthony, from — in terms of the capacity that we have around our network with an excellent footprint with our cement assets, enhanced by the deal that we announced today, particularly in Texas.
And as you know, that’s the whole kind of trend and migration towards introducing the kind of subtype 1L cements in the US as well is certainly helping from that position. So no concerns on the domestic capacity from that perspective.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of David O’Brien with Goodbody.
David O’brien: Maybe you could build on Anthony’s, Jim, if you could give us the same kind of commentary on the outlook for volume and price in Europe. And on the latter, just what is underpinning price tension as volumes stay a bit subdued? And if I could tag a second on,in the statement, you talked about a robust pipeline of opportunities on the M&A front, either similar sized deals to the type of deal we’ve seen today, or how would you describe the mix of opportunities within that pipeline?
Albert Manifold: David, I’ll just take the second question first about the pipeline and working with M&A and let Jim obviously comment on the European business. And look, we often talk about our robust pipeline. And here, you see today some of that pipeline crystallizes. I think the key issue for us is that we have a wide and varied list of — long list of companies that we can invest in. From our point of view, it’s making sure that we prioritize those to fit with our growth ambitions and also the shape of CRH as it evolves in front of us, because we’re designing CRH and looking at CRH for the years ahead and that was behind us. The rationale for Texas we’ve stated very clearly, it’s all about being in high growth markets where we’ve got competency, capability and proficiency and an opportunity that we have space to grow there, and being the number one is a huge advantage to us.
So they’re the criteria we look at. Are we the number one, number two? Are these high growth markets? Do we have a competency or near competency in this area? And does this help the overall strategic shape of CRH, which is all focused on executing solutions? Because it doesn’t just give us extra sales and profitability because anybody can buy sales and anybody can buy profitability, you can’t buy returns, you can’t buy cash and you can’t buy margin expansion. You’ve got to work at all of these margin expansion is because you become more efficient. We make better returns because you invest well and you get better — more profits than anybody else to invest in the business. And CRH is by standalone the best returning business in terms of investment in our business, in our industry.
And our margin expansion [10th] consecutive years of margin expansion is as a result of the [current total] of M&A strategy executed well in the ground by strong operations and again, cash. All of that focused on, can we buy businesses that keep generating the cash, because the $5 billion in cash we’re going to generate this year will accumulate into $35 billion of cash over the next five years. So for us, that’s what our pipeline is about is they are the criteria with who you look at. And every time we do deals, that you should hold us up to that mirror and say, okay, how do you tick the box with regard to those because that’s how you build on the quality of the business with regards to CRH. So our pipeline is good, strong and robust and we’re disciplined.
We know what we’re focused on. We have a longer term plan but that’s the basis of the structure of which that plan is built. Jim, I’ll pass you on the European business?
Jim Mintern: I think when you look at activity levels this year in ’23, we kind of see, broadly speaking, across the entire footprint of Europe, David, that they probably troughed this year, right? As we look into ’24. And again, it’s probably a reflection of our own footprint as well and that kind of real strong presence we have in Central and Eastern Europe, which is, as you know, is a very big net recipient of EU funding on the whole infrastructure program, which is certainly housing support activity levels in those particular regions and countries. And generally, in fact, our footprint — our main footprint across Europe would be in similar positions with good, strong, robust support on the infrastructure side. In terms of residential, clearly, in Europe, it remains subdued and it’s going to change.
