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Yeoh Khoon Cheng appointed interim chief executive officer of Lafarge Malaysia
Written by Global Cement staff
21 November 2018
Malaysia: Lafarge Malaysia has appointed Yeoh Khoon Cheng as its interim chief executive officer (CEO).
Yeoh started his career with Deloitte Kassim Chan in 1979. He joined Lafarge Malaysia in 1987 as finance manager and has held various positions involving business development, mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance activities and acted as company secretary from 1990 to 1998. He was appointed as executive director and chief financial officer (CFO) in 1999. From mid-2011 to the end of 2015, he was the CFO for Lafarge Cement China. Latterly, Yeoh was the CFO of Huaxin Cement in China from 2016 to mid-2017. He is a member of the Malaysian of Institute of Accountants and the Malaysian Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
EAPCC receives government backing to sell land to meet debts 21 November 2018
Kenya: The East Africa Portland Cement Company (EAPCC) has received backing from the Ministry of Trade to sell unused land to pay off debts and commitments of nearly US$150m. The ministry said that a cabinet memorandum is ready to grant the company approval to sell off its assets, according to the Business Daily newspaper. The cement producer says it needs the funds to pay employee benefits, pay suppliers, pay off debts to companies including the Kenya Commercial Bank and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency and refurbish its plant. The cement producer says it wants to spend US$19.5m towards refurbishing its plant in a one-to-two month shutdown. At present the unit is operating at a 50% capacity utilisation rate.
APO Cement to scale back operations 21 November 2018
Philippines: Cemex Philippines’ subsidiary APO Cement plans to close its Davao cement terminal and indefinitely suspend one of its kilns at its Barangay plant in Cebu. It said in a statement that it had taken this action due to uncertainty caused by the disruption to its raw material supply, according to GMA News. It follows the on-going suspension of APO Land and Quarry following a landslide in September 2018. APO Land & Quarry supplies raw materials to APO Cement.
Vietnamese official links low export price to quality 21 November 2018
Vietnam: Associate Professor Dinh Trong Thinh, of the Academy of Finance – part of the Ministry of Finance, has conceded that exported cement from the country has a low price due to the poorer quality of some of its product. In an interview with the ministry’s press service, Vietnam Economic News, he said that some smaller and medium-sized cement producers use old technology such as shaft kilns, according to Việt Nam News newspaper. He added that local producers were forced to export cement at lower prices than it is sold domestically to reduce inventory. He noted that this was not sustainable in the long run due to production costs and overseas competition.
Zement Leube buys minority stake in Asamer 21 November 2018
Austria: Zement Leube has acquired a 24.99% stake in Asamer. It made the purchase from Kurt Asamer who had decided to leave his 33% share in the business, according to the Oberösterreichische Nachrichten (OÖN) newspaper. The other partners in the business, Manfred Asamer and Robert Pree, have taken over some of Kurt Asamer’s holdings given them a majority share of 75.01%. Asamer is a building materials company that producer’s aggregates and concrete. It also owns cement production assets, including Fabrika Cementa Lukavac in Bosnia & Herzegovina.