August 2025

Chile: Cementos Bío Bío (CBB) concludes negotiations with Mississippi Lime Company (MLC), according to Diario Financiero. Earlier in November 2024, MLC presented a non-binding offer of US$1.89 per share for 100% of CBB, valuing the company at almost US$500m.

Following this, Yura has now increased its offer to US$1.48 per share, valuing CBB at US$390m, after its original proposal ‘lost attractiveness’ to MLC’s offer. Yura aims to increase its stake to 40% in the company.

MLC said "After months of due diligence and review of the company's operational and financial performance, MLC and CBB's principal shareholders shared a non-binding letter of intent in May 2024 subject to conditions. That indicative offer, and its conditions, expired during this year. The revised indicative offer [from Yura], which is subject to all of the terms and conditions set out in the non-binding letter of intent, attributes an equity valuation of US$400m to CBB.”

US: Zanini Renk has received a repeat order from St. Marys Cement for four additional gearboxes at its Charlevoix, Michigan plant. In 2016, St. Marys Cement's Charlevoix plant began a US$130m upgrade to expand the plant's infrastructure. The project scope included adding a new finish mill, an additional kiln and a new coal grinding system. The 2016 upgrade at St. Marys Cement expanded the Charlevoix plant’s cement capacity from 1.4Mt/yr to 2Mt/yr.

The initial order for a Zanini Renk gearbox was for installation in its vertical roller mill. Zanini Renk completed the gearbox installation in 2022. The first new gearbox has been in operation since January 2023 and the other two new gearboxes will be delivered at the end of November 2024. Installation is expected to be completed by March 2025 and by April 2025.

Philippines: Cemex Holdings Philippines (CHP) sold its entire stake in Swiss-based Cemex Asia Research (CAR) to Cemex Innovation Holding for US$900,459 to streamline its business, according to BusinessWorld. CHP signed a share purchase agreement with Cemex Innovation on 26 November 2024 involving the sale of 118,849 shares. The company is the licensee under certain licence agreements with Cemex and its subsidiaries for certain trademarks and intangible assets, which it sublicensed to CHP and its domestic subsidiaries. Cemex Innovation is an affiliate of Mexican operating and holding company Cemex.

Armenia: The Armenian government has extended restrictions on the import of cement and clinker from Iran and ‘other countries’ for another six months on 28 November 2024.

The restrictions were first adopted on 13 January 2022 and have been repeatedly extended since then. The latest decision takes effect on 20 January 2025 and is valid until 20 July 2025.

As a result, domestic cement production increased to 1.14Mt in 2023, a rise of 13% year-on-year, while clinker imports rose by 125,200t (19%) and cement imports increased to approximately 270,000t. During the first eight months of 2024, cement imports rose to 305,100t, a 260% increase compared to the same period in 2023, due to lower Iranian cement prices. Concurrently, local cement production declined by 31% to 485,900t in the first half of 2024.

US: Heidelberg Materials North America has entered into a definitive purchase agreement to acquire Giant Cement Holding, a cement producer on the US East Coast focused on using refuse-derived fuels, for US$600m. The acquisition will reportedly strengthen Heidelberg Materials’ cementitious footprint in the Southeastern US and New England markets and help to contribute to its circular offerings and decarbonisation efforts.

The transaction’s assets in the Southeastern US include an integrated cement plant with a capacity of 800,000t/yr in Harleyville, South Carolina, a network of four cement terminals in Georgia and South Carolina, and a joint venture deep-water import terminal in Savannah, Georgia. Assets in the New England area comprise a cement and slag terminal in Newington, New Hampshire, and a deep-water import terminal in Boston, Massachusetts. The transaction also includes Giant Resource Recovery, an alternative fuel recycling business with four facilities in the Eastern US. The transaction is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2025 and to contribute around US$60m in earnings by interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation in the first year of operation.

US: Eagle Materials has awarded thyssenkrupp Polysius a contract for the modernisation and expansion of its Laramie, Wyoming cement plant. The modernisation project will result in an expansion of the plant's manufacturing capacity to approximately 1.1Mt/yr of cement. The project also includes the installation of an alternative fuel substitution system. The modernisation of the cement plant is expected to deliver benefits such as cost reductions, achieved with lower-cost alternative fuels and natural gas, simplified maintenance and improved operational efficiencies. The production expansion from the new finish mill will supplement the grinding capacity of the existing plant, which already operates with an integrated polysius booster mill. The polytrack ECO cooler will facilitate heat recovery and clinker cooling while improving process reliability. The project, which has received primary regulatory approvals, is slated to commence immediately [in November 2024], with construction scheduled for completion by the second half of 2026.

India: FLSmidth has won an order for the delivery of its core grinding technology. The order includes two high pressure grinding rolls (HPGR) (3m diameter × 2m width), installation, commissioning, start-up support and a service agreement. The equipment is expected to be installed and commissioned during 2026. With this new order in India, FLSmidth has won a total of 15 HPGR orders or commitments in 2024. The value of the order has not been disclosed.

Türkiye: Cement exports from Türkiye to Uzbekistan decreased by 21% year-on-year in the period from January to October 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, and amounted to US$11.4m, according to Trend. Türkiye's global cement exports from January to October 2024 decreased by 7% and amounted to US$3.6bn.

In October 2024, Türkiye exported cement products worth US$765,000 to Uzbekistan, marking a year-on-year decline of 69%. Overall, it exported US$365m worth of cement, up by 1% year-on-year. To note, Türkiye exported cement worth US$4.3bn from October 2023 to October 2024.

Many readers will be aware that Gautam Adani was accused of fraud by a US court this week. In a brief statement, Adani Group said that the allegations were “baseless and denied.” The indictment relates to a solar power project, but what does this mean for Adani Group’s cement businesses?

The charges by the US Department of Justice allege, following an investigation, that Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani and Vneet Jaain, executives of India-based renewable-energy company Indian Energy Company, committed “...securities and wire fraud and substantive securities fraud for their roles in a multi-billion-dollar scheme to obtain funds from US investors and global financial institutions on the basis of false and misleading statements.” A number of other individuals have also been accused, along with the two Adanis and Jaain, of participating in a US$250m bribery scheme to Indian government officials connected to a large-scale solar energy project. The indictment related to the period 2020 - 2024 and further alleges on several occasions that “Gautam Adani personally met with an Indian government official to advance the bribery scheme.” The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has also started a connected civil case.

The problem here is that the indictment has rocked the value of Adani Group’s subsidiaries and reduced the credit ratings of some of them. This in turn will make it harder for these companies to raise money in the future for expansion. Various reports in the media said that the group’s companies had lost something in the region of US$30bn as stock prices fell by around 20%. They have since rallied somewhat. And lest we forget, Adani Group has some serious expansion plans. In the cement sector, it is targeting a production capacity of 140Mt/ yr by 2028. Recent transactions include Ambuja Cement’s purchase of Penna Cement for US$1.25bn in August 2024 and a planned acquisition announced in October 2024 of a 47% stake in Orient Cement for US$451m. The group was also linked in the local media to a bid to buy Heidelberg Materials’ India-based business in October 2024.

All of this comes with a price. International credit ratings agency S&P put Adani Ports, Adani Green Energy and Adani Electricity on a downgrade warning. Then, Fitch Ratings and Moody’s followed. Moody’s, for example, downgraded its outlook for seven Adani Group companies to ‘negative’ from ‘stable’ but it affirmed ratings on them. It commented that the allegations “could have a broader credit impact on all rated Adani group issuers” and that they would “likely weaken the Adani group’s access to funding and increase its capital costs.” It added that its actions recognised “...the possibility of broader weaknesses in the governance structure across the rated Adani group entities as well as potential operational disruptions, including on their capital-spending plans, while legal proceedings are going.” The decision by the ratings agencies does not appear to have directly affected Adani Group’s cement companies, Ambuja Cements or ACC, so far. The group may get lucky here given that these companies focus on the domestic market. Thus their credit ratings may remain more buoyant, regardless of what happens next.

As with a number of other global issues at the moment, the outcome of the recent US presidential election may also play into this case. Attorney Ravi Batra told the Press Trust of India that the incoming Trump administration might view the Adani charges as so-called ‘lawfare.’ This is where legal processes are used to target a nation’s economic or other opponents. In addition the current chair of the SEC, Gary Gensler, announced his intention to step down from the role in January 2025. It seems unlikely that the Trump administration might intervene in a legal case involving a foreign company accused defrauding US citizens but the possibility of realpolitik playing a role shouldn’t be totally discounted.

This is the second major international scandal overhanging Adani Group since the disclosures by Hindenburg Research back in early 2023. Those allegations were relatively easy to shrug off given that its accuser was an investment research firm with a reputation for using its findings for short selling shares. Hindenburg Research was not a neutral bystander. This time round, the US judicial system has become involved and the consequences are bigger both reputationally and from any potential legal outcome. In the short term, the credit implications for Adani Group as a whole are becoming apparent. Various companies and countries have stalled or cancelled planned investments. However, the cement business is smaller than the group’s power and transport concerns. It also operates domestically. We’ll have to wait and see what the wider implications for Adani Group are. The first thing to watch for the cement business will be any effect on its expansion plans.

Pakistan: Thatta Cement has appointed Muhammad Owais as its chief financial officer. He succeeds Muhammad Abid Khan in the role. Khan will continue to work at the cement producer as company secretary. Owais has worked for Thatta Cement in a variety of managerial finance roles since 2020, apart from a brief period with ready-mixed concrete company Allied Materials in mid-2023. Prior to this he worked for Deloitte Pakistan.