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Lots to mull over in LafargeHolcim’s third quarter results this week. Not least that the new guy is now in charge. Former Sika boss Jan Jenisch took over officially in September 2017. In his first financial statement, he said that the results did not represent the company’s ‘full potential.’ He then said that he had hit the reboot button to reset the group’s expectations to reflect the current market.

The group’s forecast for cement demand globally remains at an increase by 1 – 3% on average for 2017. This is no change from LafargeHolcim’s forecast in mid-2017. What has changed though is the anticipated growth in operating earnings in 2017 revised down to 5 – 7% year-on-year from 10% or higher. Expected measures of earnings per share and leverage have also been reduced. Underpinning this is a change to some of the volume and pricing assumptions for 2018. The group also said it was conducting a business review, including country strategies and a focus on simplification, cost discipline and performance management.

As any IT manager will tell you, when you have a problem with a computer you reboot the machine in the first instance as an easy fix. Jenisch’s version of this strategy will hopefully buy him some time to try and take charge of the company.

Previous chief executive officer (CEO) Eric Olsen was doing similar things since the formation of LafargeHolcim in 2015 to downsize the company into profitability whilst coping with too much cement production capacity worldwide. However, the on going Syria legal investigation forced the company to publicly accept some level of wrongdoing and it cost Olsen his job despite him having zero involvement or even knowledge of the affair. Meanwhile, rumours of continued boardroom clashes between major shareholders that have existed since even before the formation of the company resurfaced with the announcement in mid-October 2017 that chief financial officer (CFO) Ron Wirahadiraksa was leaving after less than two years in the role. As this column noted in May 2017 Jenisch might be exactly the right man for this particular job given his battles at Sika with that company’s controlling family’s wish to sell its stake and majority voting rights to Saint-Gobain.

Moving on, the group’s cement market outlook makes for sobering reading with growth above 2% only expected for Latin America and Asia Pacific regions in 2017. Even North America, the great white hope of cement industry growth in recent years, only has a forecast of 0 - 2%. Actual cement sales volumes in this region fell by 1.6% to 5.9Mt on a like-for-like basis so far in 2017 due to hurricanes and other bad weather events, with ‘cautious’ private and public investment giving an effect too. Incidentally, the Portland Cement Association (PCA) downgraded its assessment of US growth this week too in its latest forecast. Worse still the Middle East Africa region is expected to drop by 2 – 4% due to poor economies in various local markets, notably in Algeria and Egypt. All of this pretty much fits the like-for-like growth of cement sales of 1.8% to 156Mt in the first nine months of 2017 that LafargeHolcim has reported. The surprise though is that Latin America is growing despite on-going problems in Brazil.

This then leaves the surprise message on the same day as the third quarter results release that LafargeHolcim is in talks with the board of South Africa’s PPC. Buying a major African cement producer like PPC doesn’t quite sit with the image of a company whittling itself down into profitability. Instead, it gives the impression that LafargeHolcim wants to dominate the African market ahead of the anticipated demographic cement consumption wave. PPC for its part, after flirtations with other bidders such as Dangote Cement, may simply be trying to raise its price in a bidding war.

Boardroom battles, sluggish global cement consumption, the Syrian legal probe, potential expansion plans in Sub-Saharan Africa and efficiency drives. And these are just the issues we know about! Jan Jenisch has a lot on his plate whatever happens next. Let’s just hope that when the reboot process finishes he doesn’t find himself looking at the construction company version of the ‘blue screen of death.’

China: Anhui Conch Cement has appointed Yu Shui and Wu Tiejun as assistants to the general manager of the company. The postings have been made to strengthen training of junior management. They will replace Chen Yongbo in the role.

Yu graduated from Anhui University with a bachelor degree in economics. He joined the company in 1997 and has held various positions such as deputy director of the control room of the company’s sales department, assistant to director, deputy director and executive deputy director of the sales department, and in some of the company’s subsidiaries, such as executive deputy general manager of Bengbu Conch Cement, Huainan Conch Cement and Anhui Changfeng Conch Cement, general manager of Conch South Kalimantan Cement and deputy director of Wanbei Regional Management Committee. Yu is currently a director of the company’s sales department.

Wu graduated from Wuhan University of Technology with a bachelor degree in inorganic non-metallic materials. He joined the company in 2001 and has held various positions such as director of the production branch of the subsidiary, Anhui Chizhou Conch Cement, assistant to general manager, deputy general manager, executive deputy general manager and general manager of Chizhou Conch, general manager of Yingde Conch Cement and executive deputy director of the Guangdong Regional Management Committee. Wu is currently a director of the Guangdong Regional Management Committee and officer of the production control and craft management centre of the Company.

UK: Hanson has appointed Paul Lacey as the general manager of its packed products business. Lacey, who was previously head of sustainability and marketing for Hanson, has also worked for Ronseal and Crown Paints and has extensive experience in commercial and business development. He will be responsible for sites across the country producing packed cementitious products such as Postfix, as well as decorative and construction aggregates.

US: Eagle Materials has appointed Margot Carter to its board of directors. She currently serves as the lead independent director, Chair of the Nominating and Governance Committee and a member of the Audit Committee of Installed Building Products, an installer of building products, and a director of Freeman Company, a brand experience business. Carter has previously worked as the executive vice president, chief legal officer and secretary of several public companies, including RealPage, a global provider of software and data analytics to the real estate industry.

Germany: Franz-Josef Paus has been elected as the chairman of the Mechanical Engineering Industry Association (VDMA) for the next three years. Paus, aged 55 years, is an executive at Hermann Paus Maschinenfabrik. He succeeds Johann Sailer, a managing partner of GEDA-Dechentreiter, who has decided to step down after a six-year tenure. The appointment of Paus was formerly announced at the association’s General Assembly in Dusseldorf. Joachim Strobel, the sales director of Liebherr Emtec, and Hermann Weckenmann, a managing partner at Weckenmann Anlagentechnik, will act as his deputies in the role.

Sweden: The board of directors of BillerudKorsnäs has appointed Petra Einarsson new president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the company. She succeeds Per Lindberg, who leaves the company after 12 years in the role. Einarsson will assume her new position at the start of 2018.

Since 2013 Einarsson has been the president of Sandvik Materials Technology and a member of the Group Executive Management of Sandvik. Prior to that she has held a number of senior positions within the Sandvik group, including president of product area Tube, president of product area Strip and Financial Manager at Sandvik Materials Technology. Einarsson was born in 1967 and holds a BSc in Business Administration and Economics.

Sweden: Sandvik has appointed Göran Björkman as its new president of business area Sandvik Materials Technology and member of the Sandvik Group Executive Management Team. He succeeds Petra Einarsson, who is leaving the company for an external assignment. The change is effective from 1 November 2017.

Björkman, aged 51 years, has been with the company since 1990, of which almost 20 years has been spent at the materials technology operations. Most recently he has held the position as Vice President Production at Sandvik Coromant and Vice President Production Strategy, Sandvik Machining Solutions.

US: Jim Williams, the vice president (corporate purchasing and supplier relations) of Motion Industries, has been elected as the president of the Power Transmission Distributors Association (PTDA) in 2018. He will assume the role in January 2018. He succeeds Tom Clawser.

Williams has been a PTDA volunteer since 2005 when he joined the Motion Control Task Force. A past chair of the Programs and Products Committee, he has served on the Board of Directors since 2015.

US: Geoff Hynes has been appointed as the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Rexa. He succeeds Sam Lalos who will retire at the end of 2017. Lalos has held the post for five years. Rexa produces actuators for a variety of industries, including the mineral processing and mining sectors.

Argentina/US: Loma Negra has set the price of its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. It plans to raise about US$954m from the sale. Most of the proceeds will go to InterCement Brasil, Brazil’s second-largest cement producer, which owns 99% of Loma Negra, according to Reuters. The rest will go to Loma Negra.

Founded in 1926, Loma Negra is vertically integrated cement and concrete company based in Argentina. It also owns a 51% stake in a cement plant in Paraguay.