CRH COULD SPEND UP TO $4.5BN ON ASSETS - News in the last hour emerged that CRH is in negotiations to do not just a $1 billion dollar deal or $2 billion dollar deal, or even a $3 billion dollar deal - but a deal potentially in the range of between $3.5 and $4.5 billion dollars.
The acquisition in question is for some of the European and US assets of the Mexican cement producer CEMEX.
The deal, if it goes ahead, - and there is due diligence - eclipses anything else CRH - now a top five global player in cement has previously done.
This deal will be financed with debt with CRH already having said it wants to make better use of its balance sheet.
Cemex has to get rid of some of its assets under competition rules after in bought after buying another company plus other assets - All in all interests in Florida, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, New Mexico and Texas, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Ohio as well as assets in Spain, Austria and Hungary.
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FED SET TO LOWER RATES? - Events shaping the week are tomorrow's decision from the Federal Reserve on US interest rates. A cut from the current 5.25% is expected - it's just a matter of how much.
Also results from investment banks like Merrill Lynch and Bear Sterns will give some indication of the damage caused by the global credit crunch. Analysts expect the big investment names to between them write off up €30 billion of the loans they've issued.
Joe Gill, a director of Goodbody Stockbrokers, says that the Fed will likely reduce interest rates tomorrow and the market will be watching closely what the investment banks say this week in their quarterly reports.
Meanwhile former Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan who has his memoirs published later today told CBS he didn't know the scale of sub prime lending in the US until he was about to leave office.
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NEWS IN BRIEF - And what will the week ahead bring is not just a question for sophisticated investors but following the events at Northern Rock, ordinary bank account holders as well.
It has been claimed some £2 sterling was withdrawn by the bank's UK depositors - it holds deposits of around £24 billion.
Reports suggest queues have begun forming outside some branches of Northern Rock and more reports suggest other banks are waiting for the share price to fall that bit lower before taking it over.
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Cork is host to the sixth annual conference of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil. Peak Oil is the point when global oil production begins to decline for ever. Among the speakers, the former chairman of Shell, Lord Oxburgh who told a British Sunday newspaper the price of oil could hit $150 a barrel.
Last week oil closed above $80 a barrel for the first time. He didn't say when it will hit that price, but we can expect it to do so during the next 20 years.
To the markets and Tokyo was closed for a holiday and this morning the euro is worth just under $1.388 and more than 69 pence sterling.
