European Building Materials: Key learnings from Back to School Speaker series

Research evidence excerpt

J P M O R G A N

Europe Equity Research

16 September 2026

European Building Materials

Key learnings from Back to School Speaker series

As part of our September Back to School Speaker Series, within the Building

Materials space we hosted the management teams of Sika, Holcim, Heidelberg, SaintGobain, Kingspan and Travis Perkins. More detail by stock can be found in the body

of the note, and overall commentary was indicative of the higher pricing impact

expected in Q3/H2 given actions implemented in Q2 and over the summer. Volumes

overall are trending well, though the UK remains challenged as well as China; Eastern

Europe is performing well and a pick-up in Asia was seen (as referenced by

Heidelberg); Holcim noted growth in Germany with Latin America also performing

well excl. Argentina. With regards to stocks, we came away reassured on our positive

catalyst watch on Holcim (OW) and Sika (OW), where we continue to see upside to

estimates. On a more cautious note, Heidelberg (OW) noted that in the US cement

market, it continues to be challenging to push cement pricing in light of sluggish

demand and import threats, which is a key risk for stocks in our sector with US cement

exposure, as we highlighted in our recent sector report (here). Saint-Gobain (OW)

noted there has been no improvement for extreme-weather related demand so far, but

reiterated nevertheless that it is expecting LFL sales growth in Americas with a slight

decline in margins in H2. Whilst we did not host Amrize (N), we note the negative read

across from the US cement and US roofing commentary (we had already placed on

negative watch). Finally, Kingspan (OW) has been under pressure recently on AI

newsflow, but we note that management were very confident with regards to its

backlog pointing to being able to issue 2027E guidance as a result of a longer-dated

backlog.

Reminder of key catalyst watch calls. As per our recent sector report (here),

we had placed (1) Holcim on Positive Catalyst Watch (23 Oct) as continued

stellar execution is likely to lead to further positive earnings surprises with a

potential guidance upgrade at Q3. We note that our estimates look for 13% LFL

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