Displaying items by tag: Malaysia

Malaysia: Lafarge Malaysia has appointed Mario Bastian Gross as its chief executive officer (CEO). He will take up his new post on 1 April 2018. He succeeds Thierry Legrand who has been in post since mid-2015.

Gross, a German national aged 39 years, joins Lafarge Malaysia from Sika. He started his career with Sika in 2000 and has global experience with roles across Germany, China, Thailand and Switzerland. He was Asia Pacific Head of Procurement from 2007 to 2011, after which he was appointed Managing Director of Sika in Thailand. In 2013, he took the role Head of Global Procurement, Quality & Sustainability of Sika based in Switzerland.

He holds an MBA from the University of Strathclyde in the UK and a Bachelor of Economics from the VWA Koblenz in Germany.

Malaysia: Lafarge Malaysia has won a US$68.9m contract from China Communications Construction to supply cement for the East Coast Rail Link project. The contract will run until the end of 2019 with options for renewal by a further two years.

Malaysia: Cahya Mata Sarawak's (CMS) sales from its cement division have fallen in 2017 due to lower sales volumes of cement and concrete. However, the cement producer said that the average production cost per tonne of cement had fallen due to cheaper coal prices and cheaper imported clinker. Its sales revenue fell by 7.5% year-on-year to US$133m in 2017 from US$144m in 2016. Its operating profit fell by 3.5% to US$25.9m from US$26.8m. The division also benefitted from the opening of the Mambong grinding plant in late 2016.

HeidelbergCement made Italy’s Cementir Holding its Valentine last week in the form of a deal for the Italian company to buy up the remaining shares in Lehigh White Cement in the US. Cementir takes control of the former joint venture by upping its share to 63.25% for US$107m and one of the other partners, Cemex, increases its share to 36.75% for US$34m. Despite making the announcement on Valentine’s Day HeidelbergCement then described the sale in fairly unromantic language, “As a niche product with small volumes, the standalone production of white cement does not fit to the strategic focus on efficiency of HeidelbergCement.” Maybe they could just send flowers to each other next year instead!

More seriously, this latest deal by Cementir is yet another intriguing evolution of the Italian multinational building materials producer. The company says it is the largest white cement producer in the world through subsidiaries like Aalborg Portland in Demark, Sinai White Cement in Egypt and Lehigh White Cement in the US. Its plant at El-Arish in Egypt is the largest white cement unit in the world. In 2016 it reported a white cement production capacity of 3.3Mt/yr from six plants in Denmark, Egypt, China, Malaysia and the US. Its volume sales of white cement were 2.2Mt at this time or a capacity utilisation rate of 67%. In the US it operates two white cement plants located in Waco, Texas and York, Pennsylvania with a total capacity of 0.26Mt/yr, as well as a distribution network throughout the country, which is also used to distribute white cement imported from its partners across North America. In 2017 Cementir produced 10.3Mt of Ordinary Portland (grey) Cement and white cement, a rise of 24.6% year-on-year from 8.25Mt in 2016. The boost was delivered by the acquisition of Compagnie des Ciments Belges. Like-for-like sales volumes increased by around 1.7% year-on-year.

Cementir left the Italian market in 2017 when it sold Cementir Italia to HeidelbergCement for Euro315m. As this column commented as the time (GCW320) the deal seemed cheap given that HeidelbergCement paid Euro315m for five integrated cement plants plus extras. However, Cementir appeared to actually make a profit on Sacci which it picked up cheaply in 2016.

Now HeidelbergCement has returned the favour by selling Cementir the controlling stake in Lehigh White Cement. The German cement producer may have grumpily rubbished the sale in its press release but the language makes one wonder whether this was a quiet part of the Cementir Italia deal in 2017. The white cement industry is miniscule compared to the OPC one but HeidelbergCement has just handed even more control of it to Cementir. From Cementir’s perspective this probably seems very efficient.

Malaysia: Isaac Lugun and Goh Chii Bing have taken their new roles at Cahya Mata Sarawak (CMS) as Group Chief Executive Officer – Corporate and Group Chief Executive Officer – Operations respectively. They replace Richard Curtis who retired as Group Managing Director at the end of December 2017. Curtis will remain at the cement producer as a Non-Executive Director until the end of 2018.

Malaysia: Cahya Mata Sarawak’s (CMS) pre-tax profit rose to US$23.4m for the third quarter of 2017 from US$23.1m in the same quarter of 2016. The group said the better profit before tax was attributable to the cement division’s lower production costs. Its revenue, however, declined to US$85.0m from US$87.0m a year earlier. CMS said that the cement division’s clinker and cement operations’ combined profit before tax for the third quarter was 2% ahead of the corresponding quarter of 2016.

The company said that the operating environment was expected to remain challenging and the group’s healthy financial position would help weather the challenging environment. “We remain focused on growing our portfolio of businesses by taking advantage of the business opportunities in Sarawak,” said the company in a statement. “Our strong fundamentals and resilience will enable us to perform and to deliver a satisfactory financial performance for 2017. Coupled with other measures that the management is taking, we are positioning for long-term sustainable revenue and profitability growth.”

Malaysia: Yeoh Tiong Lay, the founder of YTL Group, has died at the age of 88. Lay started with a construction company in Kuala Selangor in 1955 and the built the company into a conglomerate including cement production, power generation, water and sewerage services, communications, construction contracting, property development and investment, hotel development management and more. He was appointed to the board of directors of YTL Corp in mid-1984 and was appointed as the executive chairman in 1985.

Malaysia: Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) is investing US$50m in two waste heat recovery (WHR) plants to generate electricity through the recovery of exhaust waste heat from two cement plants operated by Negeri Sembilan Cement Industries. TNB's wholly-owned subsidiary TNB Repair and Maintenance Sdn Bhd will develop and operate the plants and raise the necessary financing.

Negeri Sembilan Cement owns two cement plants in Bukit Keteri, Perlis and Bahau, Negeri Sembilan with a total production capacity of 7.2Mt/yr. TNB said that the WHR plants will have a combined power generation capability of 23MW, giving Negeri Sembilan a 9-12% saving on its electricity cost.

The group said its venture into the waste heat recovery development will provide a new business opportunity in promoting energy efficiency, green technology and a sustainable long-term energy solution.

Malaysia: Cahya Mata Sarawak's (CMS) net profit jumped more than eight times to US$15.2m in the second quarter of 2017, from US$1.8m in the same quarter of 2016. The positive result was mainly due to lower handling costs, cheaper imported clinker and lower clinker production costs brought about by stable production and lower coal prices. The net profit for the six-month period was also higher by more than nine times at US$20.5m from US$2.1m in the first half of 2016. Total first half revenue decreased by 10% year-on-year to US$157.1m from US$174.7m.

Malaysia: Richard Curtis is to retire as Group Managing Director of Cahya Mata Sarawak Berhad (CMS) on 31 December 2017. He will then remain as a Non-Independent Non-Executive Director until the end of 2018. Curtis will be succeeded by Isaac Lugun as the company’s Group Chief Corporate Officer and Goh Chii Bing as its Group Chief Operating Officer.