Europe: In the framework of their proposed merger of equals, the boards of directors (BoD) of Holcim and Lafarge have nominated their candidates for the future BoD of LafargeHolcim, subject to closing of the transaction. The designated BoD will consist of 14 members due to be elected at the Holcim Extraordinary General Meeting on 8 May 2015.

The candidates are:

• Wolfgang Reitzle, Co-Chairman (currently Chairman of the BoD of Holcim);
• Bruno Lafont, Co-Chairman (currently Chairman of the BoD and Chief Executive Officer of Lafarge);
• Beat Hess, Vice-Chairman (currently Deputy Chairman of the BoD of Holcim);
• Bertrand Collomb (currently Honorary Chairman of Lafarge);
• Philippe Dauman (currently member of the BoD of Lafarge);
• Paul Desmarais Jr. (currently member of the BoD of Lafarge);
• Oscar Fanjul (currently Vice-Chairman of the BoD of Lafarge);
• Alexander Gut (currently member of the BoD of Holcim);
• Gérard Lamarche (currently member of the BoD of Lafarge);
• Adrian Loader (currently member of the BoD of Holcim);
• Nassef Sawiris (currently member of the BoD of Lafarge);
• Thomas Schmidheiny (currently member of the BoD of Holcim);
• Hanne Birgitte Breinbjerg Sørensen (currently member of the BoD of Holcim);
• Dieter Spälti (currently member of the BoD of Holcim).

Subject to the execution and completion of the merger project, Anne Wade and Jürg Oleas will resign from their office as members of the BoD at Holcim with effect as of the completion of the merger project.

Europe: The boards of directors of Lafarge and Holcim have approved the appointment of Eric Olsen as future Chief Executive Officer of LafargeHolcim, to be in office as from the closing of the merger project.

At present Eric Olsen is Lafarge Executive Vice-President of Operations. He has been a member of the Group's Executive Committee since 2007. Aged 51, Olsen has dual American and French nationalities. He has extensive international experience and has held senior positions in operations and in the fields of finance, human resources and strategy.

Commenting on the appointment, Wolfgang Reitzle, Chairman of the Holcim Board and future co-Chairman of LafargeHolcim, said, "I very much welcome Eric Olsen as future CEO for LafargeHolcim. With his broad international experience and insights in key markets, he is best positioned to lead the combined company for the benefit of employees, shareholders and customers. Bruno Lafont and I will support Eric in creating a new joint culture that will be the key driver for our premier competitive position."

Lafarge Chairman and CEO, and future LafargeHolcim co-Chairman, Bruno Lafont, added, "I have every confidence in his ability to deliver the synergies announced and ensure the development and the success of LafargeHolcim."

The news this week that construction companies in the Indian state of Telengana are considering cement imports from China in order to circumvent a local dispute over cement prices highlights several issues. Firstly, state politics in India can create some interesting and not altogether logical situations. Secondly, it throws the spotlight on the changing situation in China, where the cement industry will be increasingly squeezed from all sides in the coming years. Thirdly, it shows that the global cement industry is exactly that – Global.

The first reaction when hearing of Chinese imports into India might reasonably be one of shock. How can it be that it is cheaper (21% less by local estimates) to import cement from 5500km away, into the world's second-largest cement producer, than it is to send it down the road from Andhra Pradesh? Overall, India is 'swimming in' excess cement capacity, which should make it cheap across the board. Large, well-run and efficient plants, coupled to current low diesel (transport) prices, should give the industry significant advantages on the international stage. So what's going on?

Poor local and national infrastructure is the 'obvious' culprit here, but it is only part of the story. The Telengana state government has imposed extra taxes on trucks bringing cement into the state from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. By suggesting imports from China, it is possible that the Real Estate Developers' Associations of India (CREDAI) wants to make a point to the state government. Spotting a local imbalance of cement supply and demand, Telengana appears, in this instance, to have acted to make a quick buck. However, it has done so to the detriment of many other stakeholders. The extra tax deprives cement producers of higher sales, robs hauliers of business and stops the public getting a fair market price for cement. This highlights that India has not only physical infrastructure to build (in terms of highways and new railways), but also a more effective political infrastructure that can put aside state-on-state one-upmanship. This is a long-term task and not straightforward when you consider India's 1.25 billion inhabitants.

Of course the fact that China has been mentioned by CREDAI as a likely source of cement is far less surprising. The largest cement producer in the world has had excess capacity for several years now (regardless of who is supplying the statistics) and takes the opportunity to export whenever it can.

However, the sands are shifting under China at the moment. The country has not been able to rely on domestic demand to keep its over-inflated cement industry in business for many years now. It is indeed highly questionable whether it ever needed a cement industry the size of the one that it built.

Indeed, economic growth is slowing for the economy as a whole and this week there were even calls for the national housing bank to reduce interest rates for lower and middle income earners, effectively propping the sector up. This comes on top of tax breaks for home-buyers, which came in at the end of March 2015. Falling house prices have bred uncertainty and a lack of demand for new constructions and hence cement. Could China's absurd cement demand bubble finally be about to pop?

Whether or not the bubble pops next week or in a couple of years, the government has long been making preparations, in the cement sector at least. It has started to aggressively remove older and inefficient capacity, encourage cement exports and helped finance new plants overseas. China is changing its emphasis from cement production to cement plant project management. This is a good move, especially as there will be fewer opportunities for conventional exports in the coming years. Neighbouring Vietnam expects to have an incredible 20Mt of cement for export at less than US$50/t in 2015, flooding China's traditional sphere of influence. At the same time, the number of countries that are self-sufficient in terms of cement production are on the rise, meaning fewer importers.

Even opportunities for Chinese firms to build cement plants outside China are likely to become fewer and further between in the future. The most promising markets in Africa already have Chinese cement plants or cement plant projects, joined this week by Zambia. Chinese cement and cement engineering firms also have interests in Central Asia, Nepal, Mongolia and elsewhere. These markets, while promising, will have nothing like the potential to consume cement like China did in the recent past. As China reduces its capacity, its growing cement plant engineering sector may well find it hard to do enough business to survive...

Germany: Uwe Väth has assumed control over operations of the Schenck Process Group, effective 1 April 2015. In this role, he will be responsible for global manufacturing, supply chain and purchasing and will report to Andreas Evertz, president and CEO. At the same time, he will become joint managing director acting from the company headquarters of Schenck Process GmbH, which plays the leading and coordinating role for all European countries as well as Russia and parts of Africa. Uwe Väth comes from the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The appointment reflects the enormous importance of operations for the Schenck Process Group. In the future, Horst Klein will take on responsibility as the vice president of purchasing and thus ensure continuity and further development. In this capacity, he will report directly to Uwe Väth.

"Thanks to his comprehensive expertise and many years of experience in the area of operations, Väth will intensively drive the development of the Schenk Process Group forward. Through his activities as a consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, he has already gained insights into our company, meaning that both sides can seamlessly build upon this cooperation. I'm very pleased to welcome him as part of the management team," said Andreas Evertz.

As a graduate engineer, Uwe Väth worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers AG in Frankfurt am Main for many years, where he had been a partner since 2011. He had also built up the strategy and operations division and oversaw projects together with his teams in the areas of purchasing, supply chain, production and tool manufacturing, quality and logistics. International customers that are active in the areas of industrial production, process industry and plastics processing were catered to.

The other big cement producer merger collapsed this week when PPC announced that it had terminated discussions with AfriSam. Details were scant due to a confidentiality agreement between the South African cement producers. However, the CEO of PPC, Darryll Castle, confirmed that neither party could agree the terms of the merger. PPC's shares rose by 5% on the news of the breakdown.

Financially the decision may have made sense. As an unlisted company AfriSam doesn't publish its financial results but PPC did report a revenue of US$742m in 2014. Comparing cement production capacity in South Africa gives PPC 4.75Mt/yr and Afrisam 3.50Mt/yr. Roughly this is a 58:42 split although this doesn't take into account both companies' aggregates, ready-mix concrete and other product concerns.

It's possible that disagreements over the value of the two companies caused the breakdown. At the time the merger was first proposed in December 2014 PPC was reeling from the resignation of its CEO Ketso Gordhan in September 2014. Some media commentators viewed the proposal as opportunistic on the part of AfriSam given all the internal problems PPC was coping with. Also, given that the combined companies would have held a 60% share of the market, it is likely that the Competition Commission of South Africa would have taken a keen interest.

The uneven ratio of sizes between the two companies considering merging is similar to the problems now facing Lafarge and Holcim. The European building materials companies started out trumpeting their merger of equals before Lafarge's relative poor financial performance and fluctuating currencies made a mockery of this parity. Once this became clear then major shareholders in Holcim started to question the merger.

Back to Africa, the question with PPC and AfriSam is whether they should have swallowed their differences in view of future growth. With Dangote expanding across the continent and Lafarge consolidating its local activity under the Lafarge Africa banner it seems like the time to merge resources and expand.

AfriSam has been saddled with debt since a buyout in 2007 when Holcim reduced its share from 85% to 15%. In 2011 it agreed to pay a penalty of US$16m, representing 3% of its 2010 cement annual turnover in the Southern African Customs Union, due to cartel activity. Then in 2013 investment holding company Pembani Group reduced AfriSam's debt for shares and a controlling say on its board. By contrast PPC has been expanding across Africa, in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zimbabwe, Algeria and Mozambique, to boost foreign sales to 40% by 2017. The programme is anticipated to raise PPC's cement production capacity from 8Mt/yr to 12Mt/yr.

Domination at home in South Africa and firm plans for continental expansion suggest that this deal wasn't in PPC's interest, although its domestic cement sales have declined which may have also made the case for consolidation more tempting. Dangote's progress in west African must be both inspiring and troubling for South African cement producers.

Nigeria: Seven directors have resigned their appointments from the Board of Ashaka Cement with effect from 10 March 2015. Umaru Kwairanga (chairman), John William Stull (vice chairman), Sen. Muhammed A. Muhammed, Kolawole Babalola Jamodu, Abubakar Ali Gombe, Lamido Abba Tukur and Hamra Imam have all resigned.

The board has appointed Mallam Suleiman Yahyah as the new board chairman with effect from 12 March 2015. They also appointed three as non-executive directors, Anders Kristiansson, Edith Onwuchekwa and Rabiu Abdullahi Umar, with effect from 12 March 2015.

This week Beijing announced that it would close the last of its four largest coal-fired power plants, the China Huaneng Group Corp's 845MW power plant, in 2016. The four coal-fired plants will be replaced by four gas-fired plants with 2.6 times more electricity capacity than the former coal plants. China's policy makers are also encouraging increased use of hydroelectric power, solar and wind and is trying to restart its nuclear power programme.

In the same week, the Independent reported that Costa Rica had achieved a renewable energy milestone, having used 100% renewable energy for the preceding 75 days. The achievement was reportedly made possible by heavy rainfall, which powered four hydroelectric plants. Costa Rica has an impressive track record when it comes to energy sources. In 2014, 80% of its energy came from hydropower and 10% came from geothermal energy. In total, 94% of its energy requirements were met by renewable energy.

However, this week we also heard that Dangote is building the world's biggest oil refinery, which will process 650,000b/day. It will also be Nigeria's first oil refinery. Aliko Dangote, owner of Dangote Group, decided to up the initial design from 450,000b/day because he believes that Nigeria, as a leading producer of crude oil, should also be credited with local refining capacity. Currently, Nigeria produces crude oil, but has to buy refined products from abroad. The refinery is expected to be fully operational by 2017.

Efforts to increase renewable energy should be strongly encouraged - the benefits to the planet and its population are undeniable. However, renewable energy technology has a way to go (if ever) before it can entirely replace fossil fuel-derived energy, which makes Dangote's investment a safe bet. As renewable energy like solar and wind power is entirely reliant on nature, supplies can never be assured.

While sporadic supplies to houses and small businesses may be part of the price we eventually have to pay for a greener world, larger businesses like supermarkets and cement plants, which could lose millions (or billions) from power outages, will surely have something to say, and a lot of sway, when it comes to relying completely on renewable energy. In addition, power outages to essential services like hospitals are unthinkable when it comes to the health of our loved ones. Ultimately, the argument for relying on renewable energy may well be won by utilitarians' 'greater good' argument, but how would it feel to know that your sick child could have been saved by fossil fuel-derived energy?

Europe: Lafarge has identified two potential chief executive candidates for LafargeHolcim, according to local media. Lafarge chief financial officer Jean-Jacques Gauthier and vice president Eric Olsen have both been named. The companies need to find a new chief executive after Holcim demanded a change to the initial agreement that would have installed Lafarge chief Bruno Lafont as head of LafargeHolcim.

In the UK there is an expression, coined by former Prime Minister Harold Wilson, that a 'week is a long time in politics.' While the week he was referring to has long since been forgotten, this refrain has since been repeated to the point of cliché by the mainstream media and is often used in the context of rapidly-changing political news stories. Regardless of its origin, this expression could well be used to accurately describe the current situation in France and Switzerland, where the past week has seen a number of serious and unpredictable developments in the preparation of the anticipated LafargeHolcim mega-merger.

Disgruntlement from 'those close to the deal' first surfaced as a 'wild rumour' a few weeks back but, in the past seven days, several of Holcim's shareholders, including the influential Thomas Schmidheiny, have questioned the contribution that can now be made by Lafarge. Holcim shareholders claim that the group has out-performed Lafarge in the 12 months since the deal was announced and they feel that this should be recognised financially. The abandonment of the Euro1.20 cap on the Swiss Franc by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) on 15 January 2015 has loaded the dice even further in Holcim's favour.

This is how the situation has deteriorated in the past seven days. Late last week, we had confirmation that Holcim was seeking to renegotiate the terms of the merger. On Monday we heard what at least part of those terms were, including an assertion that each Lafarge share was now worth just 0.875 of a Holcim share. Lafarge's main shareholders, accepting that their position was compromised to an extent, suggested that each Lafarge share was worth 0.93 of a Holcim share. Since then, it has become apparent that Bruno Lafont, the proposed leader of LafargeHolcim, has also put Holcim in a spin, as he is perceived to have presided over Lafarge's poorer performance.

Then, just yesterday, it was announced that the two current group boards had met separately in an attempt to arrive at new conditions with which to re-start negotiations. Commentators think that Holcim is holding all of the Aces but Lafarge has made it clear that it cannot accept a lower valuation and a CEO from Holcim. Discussions that take place 'in the dark' like this will do little to build confidence between the merging parties and infers that communication has become strained. There are twinges of antagonism in the releases that are not going to be solved by the boards sitting in separate rooms and whipping themselves into a frenzy.

Also caught up in this, like the child of a divorcing couple, is CRH. It only announced its purchase of Holcim and Lafarge divestments in February 2015. It stands to gain a joint Euro158m from Lafarge and Holcim if they fail to merge, but this will not make up for the loss of the many high-quality cement assets it otherwise stands to gain.

What will happen in the coming weeks? You have to be brave to predict how this will turn out, but our LinkedIn Group is a great place to discuss this rapidly-changing story. One thing we can be sure of is that there will be a lot to write about in another seven days. After all, a week is a long time in the cement industry!

Germany: The Supervisory Board of HeidelbergCement AG has amended the structure of its managing board with the addition of a new deputy chairman position. Dominik von Achten, managing board member in charge of the North America group, group purchasing and the competence centre materials, assumed the role on 1 February 2015. It was also announced that Bernd Scheifele would continue as chairman of the managing board for the next five years.

"HeidelbergCement is very glad that both Scheifele and von Achten, together with the management and employees of the company, will continue their successful work of the past years. This step will guarantee continuity in the years to come as well as a trusting and constructive cooperation between supervisory board and managing board," said Fritz-Jürgen Heckmann, chairman of the supervisory board.