Displaying items by tag: US

US: HeidelbergCement expects its profit to be negatively effected in 2017 following reforms to the US tax system. Following a change in the rules from 22 December 2017 the federal corporate tax rate has been reduced from 35% to 21% from the start of 2018. In addition, the regulations regarding the utilization of loss carryforwards were changed. This has affected deferred tax assets on losses and interest carried-forwards that are expected to reduce the group’s balance sheet by Euro200m in its annual report.

However, the company still expects a ‘significant’ increase of 2017 group share of profit before one-time effects. In addition in 2019 the major reduction of the effective tax rate in the US is anticipated to have a positive effect on group net profit and cashflow.

US: Bud Biggs, the long-term plant manager of the Mitsubishi Cement plant in Lucerne Valley, California, died at the age of 77 on 18 November 2017. It is thought that he suffered a heart attack. Biggs, who only retired in February 2017, had been manager of the plant since 1986.

Bud Biggs began his career at Kaiser Cement in Cupertino, California in 1962, first working in quality control and in concrete research. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1980 while working for the company. After a period working in Texas, he returned to California in 1986 to work at Kaiser Cement’s Lucerne Valley plant. Initially working as production manager, he was promoted to plant manager shortly afterwards, retaining his role when Mitsubishi Cement acquired Kaiser Cement.

Over the years Biggs made great contributions to the local community. In 2005 he and Mitsubishi Cement’s Senior Vice President Mike Jasberg formed the Mitsubishi Cement Corporation Educational Foundation (MCCEF), which provides additional funding for local schools and scholarships for students. Biggs was also on the boards of several other local educational and professional institutes.

US: Refractory manufacturer HarbisonWalker International (HWI) has announced two new members of its senior leadership team. Ross Wilkin has joined as chief financial officer (CFO) and corporate treasurer, and Michael Werner has joined as senior vice president, Commercial and corporate officer.

Wilkin joins HWI from Universal Stainless & Alloy Products, where he served as CFO. Before his role at Universal Stainless, he was CFO at Dynamics. Much of Wilkin’s career has been spent with HJ Heinz Company where he eventually became the became the vice president and CFO for the company’s Australia and New Zealand organisation. He began his finance career at KPMG, serving both in Toronto, Canada and in Cleveland, Ohio. A graduate of Carlton University with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Accounting and Finance, Wilkin is a certified public accountant in both Canada and the US.

Werner previously led global commercial operations for Loparex. Prior to this he spent 20 years at GE Plastics and Sabic in numerous domestic and global roles, where he progressed to become Product General Manager. He began his career at Monsanto as an engineer in Technical Development and as a manager of Business Development in the thermoplastic elastomer business. Werner holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Polymer Science from the Pennsylvania State University.

US: The Portland Cement Association (PCA) board of directors has appointed Michael Ireland president and chief executive officer (CEO). He replaces former President and CEO James Toscas.

In addition, the PCA board of directors elected the following new members: Greg Hale from Capitol Aggregates; Steve Regis, Bruce Shafer and Mark Wagy from CalPortland Company; Enrique Rozas from Drake Cement and Mike Ireland of PCA.

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.

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.

US: Douglas C Rauh has resigned as the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Summit Materials with effect from 30 December 2017. Tom Hill, the company’s President and Chief Executive Officer, will act as Interim Chief Operating Officer while the building materials company searches for a replacement. During the recruitment period, the three Executive Vice Presidents of the company’s operating segments Tom Beck (Cement Segment), Shane Evans (West Segment) and Damian Murphy (East Segment) will report directly to Hill.

The last week marked a step change to the US industry with the news that Ireland’s CRH has agreed to buy Ash Grove Cement. The latter is the largest remaining cement producer still owned by an American company. Its history dates back 135 years to its founding in 1882, with links to the Sunderland family for over a century. Following the acquisition, each of the top five cement producing firms in the US will be operated by multinational corporations based in foreign countries.

Although this scenario is not new to many other countries around the world, it is rare for a nation with a cement industry of this scale. The US is the third biggest cement producer worldwide. Out of the top ten cement producing nations Global Cement Magazine identified in its Top 100 Report 2017 feature in December 2016 only Egypt doesn’t have a local company to match the multinationals. China has China National Building Material (CNBM), for example and India has UltraTech cement and so on and so forth.

The actual sale covers Ash Grove Cement’s eight cement plants and 23 cement terminals, as well as its ready mix concrete and aggregate businesses, for US$3.5bn. Altogether its cement plants have a production capacity of 9.5Mt/yr and this really puts into contrast the Cementir Italia deal last week. HeidelbergCement has agreed to buy that company for around Euro57/t. CRH is buying Ash Grove Cement for US$368/t. That’s more that five times as much!

To be fair they are very different markets, with Italy’s cement sector consolidating near the bottom of a business cycle and the US growing with some promise. For comparison with other recent US acquisitions, CRH is offering to pay about the same as Summit Materials did to Lafarge for a cement plant and seven terminals in mid-2015. Other than that a few of the more recent transactions have been between US$200 – 300/t. The gradual price inflation for cement production capacity indicates that there is confidence in the US cement market.

In terms of CRH’s enhanced presence in North America following the completion of the deal, it currently operates two cement plants in the US: the American Cement Sumterville plant in Florida, a joint venture with Elementia, and the Trident plant in Montana. The CRH US division also runs five terminals in the Midwest and Northeast. This compliments Ash Grove Cement’s presence in the West, Midwest and South. Throw in CRH’s Canadian cement plants in Ontario and Quebec and CRH has the makings of a seriously strong cement business in North America. The only obvious impediment could be the close proximity of the CRH Trident plant and the Ash Grove Cement Montana City plant. Both are in Montana within 115km of each other and they are the only integrated plants in the state. A Federal Trade Commission arranged divestment in this location seems likely.

Ash Grove Cement’s chairman Charlie Sunderland, described CRH as his company’s biggest customer when the acquisition was announced. Buying Ash Grove Cement fills in one more piece in CRH’s construction materials puzzle in North America. Its American divisions have generated more than half of its revenue since at least 2014 dominating asphalt, aggregate and ready mix concrete markets. Yet it has lacked a cement market presence to match this. This changes when the deal with Ash Grove Cement completes.

US: CTLGroup has appointed Brian Schudiske as its president and chief executive officer (CEO). He succeeds Timothy Tonyan.

Schudiske has held leadership roles over the last 20 years, in areas such as manufacturing, supply chain, operations, and engineering management. He holds a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Environmental & Public Health from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Prior to joining CTLGroup, Schudiske was General Manager, US Materials and Manufacturing, for SGS North America where he provided operational and sales leadership for the Metallurgical Engineering and Testing business in the US and was credited for delivering new business as a result of innovative growth and sales strategies.

Tonyan will remain as chief operating officer and continue to focus his efforts on firm-wide business and client development, project management and leadership promotion.

CTLGroup is a subsidiary of the Portland Cement Association. It operates as a consulting and testing company for a variety of markets including the cement industry.