CRH has scaled down immediate ambitions for its US expansion by acquiring only a fraction of the 3.5-4.5 billion US dollars assets it had discussed buying from Cemex of Mexico. The Irish multinational pointed to the credit squeeze and the slowdown in the US housing market as factors behind its failure to agree a price. Liam O'Mahony, CRH's chief executive, said: "Clearly there was a recognition that the short-term outlook had an influence on the price we were prepared to pay. There is nothing tainted about these assets; unfortunately we couldn't agree on price." The Irish building services group said that it had acquired the assets that Cemex needed to dispose of in Florida and Arizona in order to win regulatory clearance for its US
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