Displaying items by tag: CRH
Oyak Group eyes LafargeHolcim assets amid expansion
14 November 2014Turkey: Oyak Group, Turkey's military pension fund, has US$2bn in cash for acquisitions and may spend some of it on assets being divested by Lafarge and Holcim.
Oyak is interested in Holcim and Lafarge businesses in countries including Romania, Serbia and Hungary, according to Celal Caglar, Oyak's head of the cement and automotive unit. Holcim and Lafarge need to sell units to gain regulatory approval for their planned merger to form LafargeHolcim. In Europe, regulators have set a 15 December 2014 deadline to either approve the deal or open a deeper investigation.
"We are interested in bidding as Oyak or together with a European group," said Caglar. Oyak has US$2bn in cash for acquisitions and can leverage it more than five times if needed, he added. "We are closely following the sale process."
On 10 November 2014 Oyak completed the purchase of Turkey's Denizli Çimento from Ireland's CRH and Turkey's Eren Holding AS for between US$400m and US$450m, as part of Oyak's expansion plans. Oyak has a cement production capacity in Turkey of 20.1Mt/yr, or 19% of the country's market share, through its six plants, including Denizli. It has a clinker production capacity of 10.3Mt/yr, or 15% of Turkey's total. Oyak expects Turkey's cement market to grow by 5% in 2015 after an estimated 6% in 2014, helped by projects including highways, a road tunnel under the Bosporus, stadium constructions and new metro lines.
Aditya Birla Group bids for LafargeHolcim assets
21 October 2014India: The Aditya Birla Group has submitted bids to purchase global assets being divested from the LafargeHolcim merger. UltraTech and other companies that belong to Birla have put in bids for cement units of Lafarge and Holcim in Brazil and the Philippines at an enterprise value of US$1.4bn. The group had identified Brazil as a major place for expansion three years ago. The Philippines was among the overseas countries where the group started operations several years ago.
Birla is competing with rival cement companies and private equity funds for the units. Germany's HeidelbergCement has teamed up with Votorantim Cimentos of Brazil while Cemex has joined hands with CRH plc. Eurocement is also in the race. Birla's move is part of its overall plan to increase its cement capacity to 70Mt/yr by early 2016 from 63Mt/yr currently.
Over 50% of Birla's revenues come from its overseas operations. According to a consultant involved with the deal, Birla will be unable to bid for LafargeHolcim assets in some of the market, including India, as a purchase will lead to monopoly in those markets.
Ireland: Ireland-based building materials group CRH will sell its clay brickwork division for up to Euro760m in order to bid for cement assets that are to be sold as part of the LafargeHolcim mega-merger. London-based sources have said that the Dublin-based company had hired bankers from JP Morgan to find a buyer for the division.
CRH is believed to be interested in all of the assets Lafarge and Holcim have up for sale, including subsidiaries in Canada and Brazil. LafargeTarmac, the largest cement maker in the neighbouring UK, is also up for sale as part of the LafargeHolcim divestment package. There are Euro5bn of assets for sale in total.
The disposal could be one of the first big changes by CRH's new chief executive, Albert Manifold. He was promoted in January 2014 after the retirement of Myles Lee, who had spent 32 years at the company. Several private equity firms are thought to be interested in the clay brick division. Bankers said that it was likely to fetch Euro630-760m.
CRH reports strong results in the first half of 2014
19 August 2014Ireland: CRH, the international building materials group, has reported its results for the first six months of 2014, which ended on 30 June 2014. Sales revenues increased by 4%, including 7% growth in Europe and 1% growth in the Americas. Like-for-like sales were up by 5%. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) were 27% higher than in the first half of 2013. Euro130m was invested during the first half of 2014, while net debt fell from Euro4.2bn in the first half of 2013 to Euro3.7bn in 2014.
Turkey: Ireland's CRH and its Turkish partner Eren Holding AS have hired JP Morgan Chase & Co (JPM) to help sell their cement joint venture in Turkey. CRH and Eren Holding each own a 50% stake.
Companies including Haci Omer Sabançi Holding AS (SAHOL), Limak Holding AS and Oyak Cement Group are interested in the plant. The three potential bidders are among those shortlisted and the sale process for the venture, which is known as Denizli Çimento Sanayii TAS, could be finalised by October 2014.
Denizli produces about 3% of Turkey's and 31% of western Turkey's total clinker output, according to its website. It is aiming to increase its sales to Euro86.8m in 2014 from Euro76.1m 2013.
Maha Cement plans Sri Lanka market entry
22 July 2014India: Maha Cement has announced that it plans to enter the Sri Lanka cement market with its joint venture company, My Home Industries Limited (MHIL), which is part-owned by Ireland's CRH. MHIL has 8.40Mt/yr of cement production capacity and plans to increase its capacity to 10Mt/yr by 2015. It plans to set up a cement plant in the east coast of Tamil Nadu, India, for import to nearby Sri Lanka.
CRH expands business in Europe
08 May 2014Ireland: Ireland's CRH expects earnings to rise in 2014 after revenues grew sharply in its struggling European business in the first four months of the year.
The company said that sales rose by 10% in Europe to the end of April 2014, driven by better weather conditions and improving underlying market conditions. In the US, cold weather hit early season activity, however, stronger housing activity and a strengthening economic background saw revenues rise by 2%.
"In Europe, the good start to the year in much more favourable weather conditions is encouraging. While we continue to expect second-half performance to be ahead of 2013, we believe that the strong year-to-date rate of organic growth is likely to moderate," said CRH.
The company said that it expects earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) in the seasonally less significant first half of 2014 to rise to Euro500m from Euro400m in 2013. Earnings in the second-half of 2014 should be somewhat ahead of 2013. CRH also said that it had seen limited impact on trading to date from the political unrest in Ukraine, one of its main European markets, where cement sales volumes were up by 30%. However, the outlook remains uncertain.
After announcing a review of its portfolio in 2013, CRH said in February 2014 that it would sell 45 businesses representing 10% of net assets and would continue to keep a watch on other operations accounting for 20% of its assets. On 7 May 2014 CRH announced that it was assessing another selection of businesses that account for a further 10% of its net assets, where the returns potential was not yet clear. The review will be completed in the third quarter of 2014.
Mykolaivcement reports US$5.47m loss in 2013
30 April 2014Ukraine: Mykolaivcement has reported a loss of US$5.47m in 2013. Its revenue fell by 10% to US$46.6m from US$5.28m in 2012. In 2012 Mykolaivcement reported a loss of US$5.79m according to the Ukranian News agency.
The cement producer based in Mykolaiv, Lviv region also makes paving slabs and facade tiles, concrete, pavestone and other construction materials. In April 2013 Cement Roadstone Holdings held talks with Lafarge on the acquisition of the company. Lafarge Ukraine Holding owns 99.26% of shares in the factory.
Podilskiy Cement reports Euro7.4m loss in 2013
02 April 2014Ukraine: Podilskiy Cement has preliminary reported a loss of US$7.4m in 2013. The CRH subsidiary reported a US$6.5m loss in 2012 despite increasing its revenue. The wet process cement plant has six production lines with a total cement production capacity of 3.7Mt/yr.
CRH may sell controversial Israeli company
24 March 2014Israel: CRH may end its involvement with a hugely controversial Israeli company whose cement has been used to manufacture barriers for a widely condemned security wall that separates Israel from the Palestinian West Bank.
CRH owns a 25% stake in Israel's only cement producer, Mashav and for years has drawn fire from shareholders and international pressure groups for retaining its holding in the company, which it bought in 2001. Mashav is the holding company for a firm called Nesher Cement, the cement of which has been used to construct the wall dividing the West Bank from Israel. The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign is among the groups that has put pressure on CRH to divest its stake in Mashav and has previously staged protests at CRH annual general meetings.
CRH has previously pointed out that, while it owns a 25% stake in Mashav, the group isn't directly involved in the production of concrete products in Israel. The company has also insisted that Mashav can't discriminate against who it sells concrete to and that the Israeli firm's concrete has also been sold to the Palestinian Authority.
But the new chief executive of CRH, Albert Manifold, has been spearheading a sweeping review of CRH's businesses that could see a number of them, including its stake in Mashav, being put up for sale. In February 2014 Manifold said that CRH has so far identified 45 businesses that will be put on the block. CRH finance director Maeve Carton said that the units have been singled out for not meeting 'Those criteria we have of being able to deliver improved margins and growth into the future.'
In a detailed annual report, CRH said that 34 of the 45 businesses that it's planning to sell are in Europe and another 11 in the US. CRH also said that it wrote off a total of Euro105m from the value of a 50% stake in Turkey's Denizli Cement and its 25% stake in Mashav. That has fuelled speculation that CRH may also seek to offload its holding in Mashav. A spokesman for the company declined to comment. CRH has not identified any specific businesses that it plans to sell as part of its review.