Global Cement News

Kenya: CDC Group has replaced its board members at ARM Cement Ketso Gordhan and Pepe Meijer with Sofia Bianchi and Rohit Anand. The UK government-backed investment company owns a 41% stake in the company. In addition ARM Cement has appointed Konstantin Makarov as its new executive director, replacing Rick Ashley who resigned in May 2018, and John Maonga as its company secretary. Maonga succeeds Ramesh Vora who resigned in April 2018.

Bianchi worked as head of Special Situations at Blue Crest Capital, a European hedge fund, from 2007 to 2016. She brings experience in investment roles from sectors including mining and telecommunications. Bianchi has an MBA from the Wharton School of Business.

Anand holds over 11 years of experience investing in emerging markets across Asia and Africa. He has invested in sectors across infrastructure, telecoms, manufacturing, logistics and healthcare. He is currently responsible for the Industrial Businesses equity investments team covering manufacturing, real estate and logistics across South Asia and Africa. Prior to joining CDC, Anand worked with IDFC Private Equity in Mumbai where he was part of a team managing around US$1.3bn focused on growth capital investments in infrastructure in India. Anand started his career with Ernst & Young’s corporate finance team in India. He is a CFA charter holder, holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management and a Bachelors degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from the University of Delhi.

Makarov holds over 15 years of experience in the financial markets in general and emerging markets in particular. He is responsible for launch of African practice and oversight of all sub-Saharan African and South East Asian transactions at StratLink Africa. Previously, he was directly responsible for market entry of US and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) based companies into sub-Saharan Africa and has been involved in activity focusing on emerging economies in Africa and South East Asia. He holds a Master of Science in Risk Management from Stern School of Business, New York University and Amsterdam Institute of Finance and a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Maonga, a Certified Public Secretary who is a Member and Fellow of the Institute of Certified Public Secretaries of Kenya, has over 30 years of experience in Company Secretarial and Registration Services.

US: Plibrico has appointed Aaron Ingalls as Territory Manager for the Northeastern section of the US. He is tasked with supporting and developing relationships with a network of partners and Plibrico owned construction operations. He will report to Plibrico’s Vice President of Sales, Norm Phelps.

During Ingalls’ 24-year refractory industry career, he has held various business development and sales management positions at Resco and companies that were acquired by Resco. Most recently he worked for Emerald Refractories, a refractory specialty company in Pennsylvania that he helped to launch in 2014.

US: Simon Shipp has taken over as general manager at Aumund Corporation USA, Aumund Fördertechnik’s subsidiary in the US. Shipp holds over 25 years of experience in mechanical engineering, in particular with conveying equipment for bulk materials. He succeeds Geoffrey Conroy, who has retired after 20 years in the role. Conroy will remain with the business as a consultant.

US: US Cement is in the process of obtaining a draft air permit from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to build a white cement plant in Brady, Texas. A public hearing on the application will be made in late June 2018. The subsidiary of Royal White Cement plans to build a single line 0.5Mt/yr white cement plant.

Hungary: Germany’s IKN has provided information on its role with an environmental upgrade to Duna-Dráva Cement’s Vác plant. The Euro22m project was commissioned in April 2018. The 2400t/day clinker production line was modified by IKN to handle a refuse-derived fuel (RDF) substitution rate of up to 100% in the calciner. The two lower cyclone stages were replaced, a complete new preheater tower with the inline calciner was erected, a new bypass system and a new static inlet in the clinker cooler were installed. IKN says that it completed the project in just less than two years on an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) basis.

Denmark’s FLSmdith also worked on the project replacing the line’s bag filters with an electrostatic precipitator system. This part of the environmental upgrade cost Euro4.7m.