November 2024

Switzerland: LafargeHolcim has appointed Miljan Gutovic as the Head of Region Middle East Africa and a member of its executive committee of LafargeHolcim. He succeeds Saâd Sebbar, who has left the company.

Gutovic, aged 39 years, is an Australian national with over 13 years of experience in the building materials sector. He joined LafargeHolcim in 2018 as head of marketing and Innovation after working for Sika. At Sika he worked as an Area Manager for the Middle East as well as General Manager for Australia. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering and a PhD in Engineering from the University of Technology in Sydney.

India: Dalmia Cement (Bharat) has appointed Ujjwal Batria as its chief operating officer. Batria will be in charge of leading the company's sales, marketing, logistics, manufacturing, logistics, manufacturing and technical services departments, according to the Economic Times newspaper. He holds 33 years of industry experience with roles such as the chief executive officer (CEO) for Nuvoco Vistas (formerly Lafarge India) and positions at the cement divisions of Tata Steel and Century Textiles & Industries.

UAE: Raysut Cement has appointed Afzaal Qadri as the Plant Manager of its subsidiary Pioneer Cement Industries. Afzaal will report to Raysut’s chief executive officer (CEO) Joey Ghose. Qadri, aged 49 years, holds over 30 years of experience of the Cement Industry. He started his career in the cement industry in 1987 and has worked in various engineering and operational roles in the US, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Pakistan. Most recently he worked by HeidelbergCement in the US.

US: Ametek Brookfield has appointed Vicki Case as Global Marketing Director. She has spent the past 12 years working at Sealed Air in Saddle Brook, New Jersey. Most recently she worked as the VP Marketing, Global e-Commerce & Fulfillment Solutions for the company. Case is a graduate of the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering.

Botswana: The Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry plans to restrict imports of cement following the introduction of new legislation. It will require 70% of cement to be sourced from local producers with only 30% allowed to be imported, according to the Weekend Post newspaper. The Control of Goods, Prices and Other Charges Act was announced in April 2018. An import permit scheme is scheduled to start in September 2018. The new regulations are intended to regulate trade with South Africa better.

Nigeria: Dangote Cement has opened a terminal at Owerri in Imo State. The unit was officially inaugurated by the governor of the state, Chief Rochas Okorocha with the president of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, also in attendance, according to the This Day newspaper. In a speech Dangote said that the state was one of the ‘major’ markets domestically for the company.

Argentina: Cement consumption rose by 7% year-on-year to 5.85Mt in the first half of 2018 from 5.49Mt in the same period in 2017. Data from the Asociación de Fabricantes de Cemento Portland (AFCP) also showed that despatches rose by 7% to 5.86Mt from 5.49Mt. However, both consumption and despatches for May and June 2018 fell.

US: Welding Alloys has released information about a project to rebuild a FCB Horomill at Buzzi Unicem’s Maryneal cement plant in Texas in early 2018. The engineering company’s Mexican subsidiary Welding Alloys Panamericana has experience of rebuilding these types of mills and it collaborated with the group’s American wing, Welding Alloys USA, on the project.

France/Italy: Chryso has signed an agreement to buy certain assets of Italy’s Ruredil, including its cement additives, concrete admixtures and technical mortars business divisions, but excluding the Rurmec brand. The cost of the acquisition has not been revealed. The transaction is expected to complete over the summer of 2018 subject to the satisfaction or waiver of customary conditions precedent.

“The combination of our operating businesses in Italy will provide a wider range of products to our customers, as well as improve our geographic coverage, enabling us to serve a greater number of building companies and cement and concrete manufacturers across Italy and abroad. The businesses will have strong offerings to answer the new technical challenges of the building industry,” said Thierry Bernard, president and chief executive officer of Chryso.

In Italy, Chryso operates as Chryso Italia, which was established in 1997. Its customers in the region include cement manufacturers, concrete producers and building companies. Ruredil is an Italian company, established in the 1950s. It manufactures chemicals and structural reinforcement systems, and owns well-recognised brands in the construction industry such as Ruredil and Levocell.

US: CRH has completed the sale of cement and ready-mix assets to Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC) following its acquisition of Ash Grove Cement. Ireland's biggest company sold the Trident cement plant in Montana to GCC for US$107.5m.

The move comes less than a month after CRH received regulatory approval from the US Federal Trade Commission to acquire cement manufacturer Ash Grove Cement for US$3.5bn in a deal first announced in September 2017.

As part of the transaction with GCC, CRH acquired most of the ready-mix plants and transportation assets belonging to GCC in Oklahoma and northwest Arkansas for US$118.5m. GCC will continue to own and operate four ready-mix plants in the Fort Smith, Arkansas area and own an office building in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which it will lease to CRH.
The purchase and sale amounts have been paid in full but are subject to final inventory valuation adjustments, which are expected to be completed within 90 days.