Analysis

Cemex was the first of the big multinational cement producers to release its fourth quarter results this week. Revenue, sales volumes of cement and gross profit were all up in single digits. Earnings growth was less impressive, with operating earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rising by 1% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis to US$2.56bn in 2018. This was a decrease of 1% in real terms. Cemex blamed this on rising energy costs and on lower earnings from its territories outside of Mexico and the US.

Figure 1: Breakdown of Cemex’s net sales in 2018 by region: Source: Cemex.

As Figure 1 shows, over three quarters of Cemex’s sales come from Mexico, the US and Europe. Elsewhere its presence is smaller but it does have plants in key countries like the Philippines and Egypt. The former, for example, saw its cement sales rise by 7% in 2018 bringing along the rest of the Asia, Middle East and Africa region into volume growth.

Some other non-financial results to consider lead with the good news that 2018 was the first year ever that Cemex has had without any employee fatalities. This probably doesn’t include contractors or third parties, we’ll have to wait for the next sustainability report to find out for sure, but this is undoubtedly a milestone. Another point of interest was the growth of Cemex Go, its online sales platform. In 2018 it was responsible for around 40% of the company’s sales volumes. Around 85% of its recurring clients use it and it has nearly 30,000 customers. The analytics alone from the system and the potential for further tailoring it towards both customer and company objectives sound promising. Lastly, Cemex was also keen to note its alternative fuels substitution rate of 27% in 2018.

In recent years the other metric that the analysts have been watching is Cemex’s debt. It dropped by 8% year-on-year to US$10.4bn in 2018 compared to a high of US$17.5bn in 2013. Its plan is to reach an ‘investment-grade’ balance sheet by 2020.

In this way Cemex has been ahead of the curve of the major European cement multinationals like LafargeHolcim and HeidelbergCement that have taken on ‘indigestible’ acquisitions more recently. Possibly behind all of these companies is CRH, which has steadily been growing in recent years through acquisitions. It made the headlines this week on the corporate side when Swedish so-called ‘activist investor’ Cevian bought what is thought to be around a 3% stake in the Irish company. The financial press thinks it’s after a seat on the board to try and influence CRH to focus on margins rather than its acquisition strategy. CRH’s EBITDA margin was 12% in 2017 compared to 23%, 19% and 19% for LafargeHolcim, HeidelbergCement and Cemex respectively. This is just one way of comparing these companies. CRH, for example, might be keen to promote how its other metrics like cash generation and return on capital employed perform compare favourably to its competitors.

The point though is that it has taken Cemex over a decade since its acquisition of Rinker to rebuild its finances. All being well, it stands ready to take advantage of whatever the cement market holds in the 2020s.

Two supplier news stories this week presented a snapshot of the global cement industry. The first was FLSmidth’s annual results for 2018. The second was the announcement by France’s Fives that it had signed a collaboration agreement with China’s CNBM.

Overall FLSmidth reported its highest order intake in six years with revenue growth driven by its minerals division. On the cement side though the equipment manufacturer was blunt, describing the market for new cement capacity as, “subdued with low plant utilisation globally.” In its assessment a slow increase in global consumption outside of China was not enough to absorb overall production overcapacity. It said it saw a ‘healthy’ level of small to mid-sized orders for grinding plants, upgrades, retrofits and single equipment orders. The market for replacements and upgrades was identified as a strategic focus. It also noted environmental upgrades for plants in China and India as environmental regulations tighten.

Fives’ news touched on the rivalry that western-based manufacturers have faced from Chinese competitors. Fives and CNBM have agreed to explore projects together in new plants, expansions and upgrades. Although the press release was brief, this seems to involve CNBM using Fives technology such as grinding mills, pyro-lines and burners. Like the rest of the industry Fives has had a tough time of it in recent years in the cement sector although 2018 seemed to have improved considerably at the nine-month stage in September 2018. So signing an agreement with a competitor at this stage is interesting. FLSmidth did a similar deal with CNBM in mid-2018 when it signed a framework agreement for future collaboration.

The context here is that the new plants that are being built are often part of China’s One Belt, One Road Initiative, typically in Central Asia or Africa. Mostly these plants are being financed by Chinese joint ventures and built by Chinese suppliers. This week Reuters published a map of new cement plants being built in 2018 with Chinese involvement along the silk road using Global Cement data. Rightly, FLSmidth and Fives are taking steps to be a part of this growth.

Figure 1: New Chinese cement plant projects outside of China in 2018. Source: Reuters using Global Cement data.

There is a tendency in the western press to play up Chinese imperial ambitions exemplified by US Vice President Mike Pence’s comments at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Papua New Guinea in November 2018. Yet, Sinoma International Engineering, one of CNBM’s engineering subsidiaries, reported that its new order intake fell by 14% year-on-year to US$4.56bn in 2018. No reason for the decrease was given but most of this fall seemed to come from its construction division. In turn most of this came from a fall in foreign orders. The implication is that China’s attempts to move its cement industry out of the country may not be happening fast enough to preserve the size of these companies.

Returning to European equipment suppliers, FLSmidth summed up its response to this situation in its annual report. The cement market is split between premium and mid-market projects, with the latter dominated by Asian suppliers. FLSmidth says it is targeting the mid-market by becoming the preferred original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of choice. They are not alone in their ambition as the Fives deal shows.

The cement industry in the Philippines has been generating a lot of ‘steam’ in the past three months. Some of this has now come to a head in the last few weeks with the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) decision to impose tariffs on imported cement and the Philippine Competition Commission’s (PCC) on-going investigation into alleged-anti-competitive behaviour. Then, there was the unnamed sourced quoted by Bloomberg this week that LafargeHolcim was seriously thinking about selling up in the country.

Resistance to imported cement has been building for a while as local producers and importers have repeatedly clashed in the media. The latest thread of this story started in September 2018 when the DTI started an investigation into imports. A review by the department found that imports grew by 70% year-on-year in 2014, 4391% in 2015, 549% in 2016 and 72% in 2017. However, the market share of imports grew from 0.02% in 2013 to 15% in 2017. This was followed by various organisations taking sides. The Philippine Constructors Association, Laban Konsyumer (a consumer group), the Philippine Cement Importers Association and others came out on the side of the importers, warning of the risk to prices and consumers if duties were implemented.

It didn’t stop the DTI though. It imposed a provisional safeguard duty of US$0.16/bag on imported cement, around 4% of the cost of a 40kg bag. The PCC then said that it was going to consider the new tariff as part of its on-going investigation. Its probe started in 2017 following allegations that the Cement Manufacturers Association of the Philippines (CEMAP), LafargeHolcim Philippines and Republic Cement and Building Materials had violated the Philippines Competition Act by engaging in anti-competitive agreements.

Amid all of this, LafargeHolcim popped up earlier this week with a news story that it was actively trying to find the ‘right’ price for its local subsidiary, Holcim Philippines. The ‘right’ price at the moment being something around US$2.5bn for four integrated plants and associated assets. That’s around US$225/t of production capacity using the total of 8.4Mt/yr in the Global Cement Directory 2019 and considering LafargeHolcim’s 75% share in the subsidiary. This is about what you’d expect, but it is certainly higher than the US$120/t LafargeHolcim has officially accepted for its divestment of its Indonesian operations.

Given the anonymous nature of the sources involved, it’s uncertain whether LafargeHolcim’s alleged intentions to sell in the Philippines is anything more than market scuttlebutt. What is more certain is that Holcim Philippines has had a tough time so far in 2018, reporting a 23% year-on-year drop in earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) to US$64.8m in the first nine months of 2018 from US$83.9m in the same period in 2017. Sales have grown but this has been hit by the fuel, power and distribution costs as well as the depreciation of the Philippine Peso against the US Dollar. It also blamed imports for its problems. However, alongside all of this the company announced in December 2018 that it was spending US$300m towards increasing its production capacity by 30% to 13Mt/yr by 2020. This includes upgrades to its plants at Bulacan and Misamis Oriental with the installation of new kilns, mills and waste heat recovery systems.

The latest victory in the war between producers and importers seems to be on the side of the producers as the government steps in with protection for the industry. The Philippines’ economy is doing well with its gross domestic product (GDP) forecast to rise by 6.5% in 2019 by the World Bank. The trick for the government will be striking the balance between shielding industry from dumping and allowing the construction industry to keep on growing. Rumours about LafargeHolcim selling up are enticing but seem less likely than LafargeHolcim’s decision to exit Indonesia. Leaving would mean abandoning South-East Asia and exiting a country with a growing industry.

The Bangladeshi cement industry has been busy over the last month. Both Vietnam and Iran have marked up the country as a major destination for their exports. No change there, but Saudi Arabia has also started to join them as its producers have started announcing clinker export deals to the country. Alongside this there have also been production upgrades announced from MI Cement, Chhatak Cement and a Saudi-led partnership. Also, just before Christmas, Shah Cement inaugurated the world’s largest vertical roller mill (VRM) with a 8.1m grinding table, supplied by Denmark’s FLSmidth, at its Muktarpur plant in Munshiganj.

Md Shahidullah, vice president of the Bangladesh Cement Manufacturers Association (BCMA), described 2018 as a good year for the local industry to local media. Cement sales rose to 33Mt and consumption grew by 12% year-on-year.

The country has an integrated production capacity of 8.4Mt/yr from eight plants according to Global Cement Directory data. The main plants are Chhatak Cement and Lafarge Surma Cement. Locally produced clinker accounts for about 20% of the country’s needs, with the other 80% imported from abroad. Hence, the action is really with the grinding plants and the country has over 30 of them. A market report by EBL Securities in mid-2017 reckoned that local cement production capacity was 40Mt/yr but that actual production was around 32Mt in the 2016 - 2017 reporting year due to problems with power supplies and so on. Given the focus on grinding it’s interesting to note imports of clinker. These rose by 9% year-on-year to a value of US$518m in 2017 - 2018, the highest figure since 2014 - 2015. Not all of this may be consumption related since the local currency, the Taka, depreciated against the US dollar in 2017 and 2018.

Back in 2016 the market leaders were Shah Cement, LafargeHolcim Bangladesh, Bashundhara Group, Seven Rings Cement and HeidelbergCement. They accounted for about half of the market share. Of these LafargeHolcim Bangladesh saw its revenue nearly double year-on-year to US$101m from US$58m in the first half of 2018. Its profit did double to US$6.3m from US$2.7m. The company is a joint venture between LafargeHolcim, Spain’s Cementos Molins and other partners.

Bangladesh suits a grinding-based industry due to its high level of navigable waterways and low levels of limestone. In some respects though the country is a glimpse of what future cement markets might look like. Its lack of raw materials means it focuses on grinding and a clinker-rich world plays right into this. This creates an oversaturated market full of lots of companies due to the lower cost of setting up a grinding business or cement trading. In theory this should be great for end consumers and the general development of the country. After all Bangladesh has a high population, of 164 million, and a low gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, US$4561, and similarly low per capita consumption of cement. The downside though is that reliance on external raw materials. Any changes to exchange rates or material supply puts the entire industry at risk or puts prices in flux. In the meantime though the interest by Saudi exporters adds an interesting dynamic to a crowded market.

More details from HeidelbergCement this week on its divestment strategy. It has sold its half-share in Ciment Québec in Canada and a minority share in a company in Syria. A closed cement plant in Egypt is being sold and it is working on divesting its business in Ukraine. Altogether these four sales will generate Euro150m for the group. Chairman Bernd Scheifele said that the company expects to rake in Euro500m from asset sales in 2018. It has a target of Euro1.5bn by the end of 2020.

In purely cement terms that is something like seven integrated plants. So the usual game follows of considering what assets HeidelbergCement might consider selling. The group offered a few clues in a presentation that Scheifele was due to give earlier this week at the Commerzbank German Investment Seminar in New York.

First of all the producer said that it was hopeful for 2019 due to limited energy cost inflation, better weather in the US, the Indonesian market turning, general margin improvement actions and sustained price rises in Europe. It then said that its divestments would focus on three main categories: non-core business, weak market positions and idle assets. The first covers sectors outside of the trio of cement, aggregates and ready-mix concrete. Things like white cement plants or sand lime brick production. Countries or areas it identified it had already executed divestments in included Saudi Arabia, Georgia, Syria and Quebec in Canada. Idle assets included depleted quarries and land.

The first obvious candidate for divestment could be the company’s two majority owned integrated plants in the Democratic Republic of Congo. These might be considered targets due to the political instability in the country. However, this is balanced by the potential long-term gains once that country stabilises. Alternatively, some of the plants in Italy seem like a target. The company had seven integrated plants, eight grinding plants and one terminal in 2018.

The presentation also pointed out the sharp rise in European Union (EU) Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) CO₂ emissions allowances, from around Euro5/t in 2017 to up to Euro20/t by the end of 2018. In late 2018 Cementa, a subsidiary of HeidelbergCement in Sweden, said it was considering closing Degerhamn plant due to mounting environmental costs. The group reckons it can fight a high carbon price through consolidation, capacity closure, higher utilisation, limited exports and pricing. It also pointed out that it is a technology leader in carbon reduction projects. It will be interesting to see how environmental costs play into HeidelbergCement’s divestment decisions.

Finally, a tweet by Sasja Beslik, the head of sustainable finance at Nordea, flagged up a few cement companies as being the worst companies for increasing CO₂ emissions between 2011 and 2016. HeidelbergCement was 19th on the list after LafargeHolcim and CRH. Sure, cement production makes CO₂ but it’s far from clear whether the data from MSCI took into account that each of these companies had expanded heavily during this time. In HeidelbergCement’s case it bought Italcementi in 2016. Cement companies aren’t perfect but sometimes there’s just no justice.