Displaying items by tag: Disensa

We round off 2025 with the news that Holcim is preparing to buy a majority stake in Cementos Pacasmayo. This has implications for both the future of Holcim and the cement market in Peru. We explore this and more below.

This proposed acquisition starts to answer the question of what kind of company Holcim wants to be following the spin-off of Amrize, the North American business, in June 2025. The remainder of Holcim after the split consists of a large European segment and smaller divisions in Latin America and Asia, Middle East & Africa (AMEA). After the divestment of Lafarge Africa in Nigeria, the AMEA business now mainly covers North Africa, the Middle East, Australia, Bangladesh, China, New Zealand and the Philippines. In Latin America the group has subsidiaries in many countries, from Mexico south to Argentina. It also operates the Disensa construction materials retail chain. Holcim’s NextGen Growth 2030 strategy is targeted at sustainability and growth in AMEA and Latin America. The size of the business in Europe dictates the need for sustainability but the growth potential is elsewhere. Hence the attractiveness of deals like the one in Peru.

The acquisition of Cementos Pacasmayo follows a string of deals for Holcim in the country. Holcim purchased ready-mix concrete producer Mixercon and industrial minerals producer Comacsa for US$100m in mid-2024. Then in April 2025 it bought specialty buildings products manufacturer Compañía Minera Luren. The proposed Cementos Pacasmayo deal builds on all of this. Holcim has agreed to spend US$1.5bn to buy a 50.01% share. Completion of the transaction is expected in the first half of 2026 once regulatory approval is obtained. It will give Holcim control of Cementos Pacasmayo’s three integrated cement plants with a combined production capacity of 4.9Mt/yr, 28 ready-mix and precast concrete plants and 300 of the company’s DINO retail stores. Notably, Holcim appears to be paying around US$610/t for the new capacity. This is comparable to recent deals in North America.

The Holcim deal marks a change to the dominance of the cement market in Peru by local players. Previously, all the integrated clinker producers - UNACEM, Cementos Pacasmayo, Grupo Gloria and Cementos Inka - were owned by Peruvian companies. This started to change in 2024 when Holcim bought Comacsa and its white cement plant in Lima. Coincidentally, a US$17.5m fine imposed upon Grupo Gloria by National Institute for the Defence of Free Competition and the Protection of Intellectual Property (Indecopi) for anticompetitive behaviour was confirmed this week. The penalty was originally announced in 2023 in response to the alleged enforcement of exclusive supply contracts and restricted access to Cemento Yura plants. The subsidiary of Grupo Gloria continues to oppose the ruling.

Graph 1: Cement despatches in Peru, 2016 - 2015. Source: Asociación de Productores de Cemento (ASOCEM). Note: Figure estimated for 2025.

Data for November 2025 from Asociación de Productores de Cemento (ASOCEM) shows that despatches grew by 5.9% year-on-year from December 2024 to November 2025. Both imports and exports of cement and clinker are also up. Similarly, Cementos Pacasmayo has reported a good year so far in 2025. Its sales grew by 7% year-on-year to US$462m and its consolidated earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) by 4.6% to US$121m in the first nine months of 2025. This was attributed to higher sales for infrastructure-related projects and an increase in bagged cement demand.

The cement market in Peru has bounced back strongly following the Covid-19 epidemic. There was a dip in 2023 and 2024 but the market stayed at higher levels than the late 2010s despite this. Further growth has now returned and more is expected in the future. This may explain why Holcim has agreed to pay serious money to buy a cement company in Peru. As the business in Europe adapts to sustainability it is looking to expand elsewhere. Latin America is the obvious candidate to build on the existing business. Locally in Peru, this deal will change the status quo and it will be fascinating to observe how the market evolves in coming years.

Global Cement Weekly will return on Wednesday 7 January 2026

What’s in a name? Well maybe quite a lot when the company in question originally formed as a ‘merger of equals.’ So the news this week that the shareholders of LafargeHolcim have agreed to change its group name to Holcim suggests quite a lot. The name will only apply to the group company name and all market brands will remain as they are. Yet something fundamental appears to have changed.

As readers may remember, the original merger arrangements between Lafarge and Holcim ran into difficulties in early 2015 when Holcim’s shareholders expressed discontent at the perceived difference in value between the two companies in 2014. The deal was saved with a move away from a proposed 1-1 share exchange ratio towards one more in the favour of the Holcim shareholders and the removal of Lafarge’s chief executive Bruno Lafont as the designated chief executive of the new entity. However, from this point onwards the nagging suspicious was that the merger was really a glacial takeover of Lafarge by Holcim. Lafont and LafargeHolcim’s first chief executive officer (CEO) Eric Olsen became embroiled in legal proceedings surrounding Lafarge’s historic conduct in Syria. Then in mid-2018 LafargeHolcim decided to close its Paris headquarters, Lafarge’s old hub. During an extraordinary general meeting in May 2015 held by Holcim it was agreed to rename Holcim Ltd as LafargeHolcim Ltd as part of the merger process. The latest decision by shareholders in 2021 has reversed this.

For consumers of building products the bit about market brands staying as they are, as LafargeHolcim changes its name, is probably more important than the corporate wrangling over whatever the faraway parent company may or may not be called. So, Holcim Argentina’s plans this week to open 1000 new branches of its Disensa retail chain by 2024 may be far more important for existing and potential customers in that country. This is an enormous number of hardware stores for just one country by most reckonings and its gives one an idea of LafargeHolcim’s ambitions in the sector. It also carries echoes of the trend of business chains taking over the previously independent convenience store sector in the food sector in other parts of the world in recent decades. The Disensa franchise already operates over 2500 stories in eight countries - Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua and El Salvador – and it holds claim to being the largest building materials network in Latin America. And they aren’t stopping with just selling building materials. One innovation announced in April 2021 was the introduction of financial services to small businesses wanting to buy building products at its stores.

LafargeHolcim isn’t saying how much its retail chains contribute to the bottom line but no doubt it’s helping in a variety of ways. During an earnings call for its fourth quarter results in 2020, for example, its chief financial officer Geraldine Picaud noted that growth in Latin America in the second half of 2020 was driven by branded product in all distribution channels, including the Disensa chain. She also added that the region had the highest margin in the group at the time. Another thing to consider is, if the rumours about LafargeHolcim preparing to sell its operations in Brazil are true, what will it do with the local Disensa chain? Divesting carbon-intensive heavy industries, such as cement production, but migrating outwards and upwards in the building materials supply chain would certainly suggest that the company is preparing for its place in a low-carbon future.

Yet with all this talk of what LafargeHolcim or Holcim wants to call itself it is interesting to note that it was under Holcim in 2005 that Disensa was turned into a franchise network in its original home of Ecuador. A similar version of this model called Binastore was expanded and launched by LafargeHolcim in 2018 for Africa and the Middle East. ‘Joe Public’ or rather ‘José Public’ may not care what LafargeHolcim is called when they are buying cement from their local Disensa store. Other hardware stories are of course available.

Argentina: Holcim Argentina, part of Switzerland-based LafargeHolcim, has announced plans to open 1000 new branches of its Disensa retail chain by 2024. The Diario Financiero newspaper has reported that the chain opened 40 new locations during 2020.

General manager Natalia Soler said, "Being considered an essential sector, builders merchants continued to operate during quarantine. This scenario benefited us, coupled with the number of customers who took advantage of the context and their savings to make repairs to their homes."

Americas: Switzerland-based LafargeHolcim has begun its roll-out of ECOPact low-carbon concretes in its Latin America region, launching the product range in Ecuador, Colombia and Mexico to “meet growing demand for green products.” The company says that the launch in other markets will follow in early 2021. It said “this roll-out of ECOPact builds on its successful market adoption across Europe, the UK, the US and Canada.” The producer additionally plans to introduce its ECOLabel “to transparently communicate the environmental benefits of its green cement range” across the Disensa retail network from December 2020, enabling customers to “easily identify products that comply with the company’s green criteria, including lower carbon dioxide (CO₂) footprint and recycled content.” Every country in the region will have at least one ECOlabel product, according to the company.

Latin America regional head Oliver Osswald said, “With the roll-out of the widest range of green building materials in Latin America, we are committed to leading the way in sustainable construction. Building on our region’s excellent third quarter 2020 results, demonstrating strong resilience despite an unparalleled health crisis, Latin America is well positioned to tackle the challenges ahead. We have a clear and unified strategy supported by two strong pillars: a rapidly expanding Disensa retail franchise network, and a fully orchestrated regional push toward green building solutions.”

LafargeHolcim’s Latin America retail network Disensa will reach 2500 stores in 2020, almost double the number in 2018. The company said, “Disensa will become the central network to reach millions of consumers with a diverse product portfolio, based on quality and environmental benefits by offering ECOLabel products on a wide scale. Disensa will also introduce new digital experiences to the buying process and eventually become a full line of stores from Disensa Express to Disensa MAX!”

LafargeHolcim will host the First Latam Virtual Convention for current and potential Disensa franchisees from 25 – 27 November 2020, with participants from eight Latin American countries.

Costa Rica/Latin America: LafargeHolcim has opened the 1000th store in its Disensa retail network in Latin America. The milestone store opened in Costa Rica in late December 2017. Since expanding its Disensa network beyond Ecuador in April 2017, the company has added around 500 Disensa-branded stores in Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico and Nicaragua. LafargeHolcim plans to continue its network expansion in Latin America by opening its first store in Brazil in early 2018.

“The roll-out of the group’s retail strategy in emerging markets such as Latin America is enabling us to get even closer to consumers,” said Oliver Osswald, Head Region Latin America at LafargeHolcim.

The Disensa network is intended to offer self-builders and smaller contractors access to LafargeHolcim’s own building solutions as well as other construction materials and services, including microcredit and technical help. The concept was developed in Ecuador as a franchise scheme. The group also launched its Binastore brand of retail stores in the Middle East and Africa in mid-2017, opening stores in Algeria, Lebanon, Morocco, Ivory Coast, South Africa and Zambia.