Displaying items by tag: Blue Circle
Nigeria: Joseph Oyeyani Makoju, former managing director of Dangote Cement and advisor to Aliko Dangote, died in hospital in Abuja on 11 April 2022 whilst suffering from a heart condition. He was 73 years old, according to the Daily Independent newspaper. Makoju, an engineer by training, also served as a Special Advisor for Electrical Power under the former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan.
Following a career in the Nigerian power sector, Makoju worked internationally for Shell-BP, Blue Circle Cement in the UK and for West Africa Portland Cement Company (WAPCO), part of Lafarge. He joined Dangote Cement in 2009 as Special Advisor to Aliko Dangote and was subsequently promoted to chief executive officer / Group Managing Director in April 2018. He retired from the company in January 2020.
Colin Sutherland dies aged 64
21 February 2022Canada: Concrete Economics managing director and long-time figure in the North American cement industry Colin Sutherland has died. Colleagues from throughout his 30 year-career spanning Canada, France and the US have been posting memories of Sutherland. Olsen Management Consulting president and Sutherland’s former Lafarge and Votorantim Cimentos colleague Richard Olsen said “We've lost a dear friend and long-time colleague. Colin was highly respected and valued in the cement industry and had developed a depth of knowledge and insight that was unique.” He continued “Colin's infectious laughter, ever-positive attitude and charm endeared him to many. He'll be sorely missed.”
Before joining Concrete Economics in May 2021, Sutherland was president and co-founder of SC Market Analytics and a board member of US Concrete. Previous positions also included vice president, commercial strategy, for Votorantim Cimentos North America; vice president, business development, integration and strategy for Holcim US and vice president, cementitious materials for Lafarge Cement. Between 1995 and 2001, Sutherland served as director of corporate development for Blue Circle North America, where he subsequently became group integration director following its merger with Lafarge Cement.
No new use for Weardale after 15 years
14 August 2017UK: The owner of the former cement plant at Weardale, which has planning permission for a multi-million pound eco village, is working to finding a new use for the land. Lafarge UK sold the former Blue Circle cement plant in 2015, after plans to create a green energy village on the land ground to a halt due to the recession.
Durham County Council said it was still keen to support the development of the site by any interested party. A spokesperson for the owner said, “The owners are continuing to work with the council, who are very supportive, to find a solution for the works site. The new owners believe any solution has to be demand led. Although the planning consent for the eco village is still live, all parties recognise that with an estimated cost of delivery in excess of Euro110m, it was never likely to be built.”
Last Wednesday 9 August 2017 marked the 15th anniversary of the closure in 2002 and councillors and former employees have expressed frustration that the site remained empty, despite millions of pounds being spent developing the eco-village scheme so far.
CRH completes LafargeHolcim acquisition
03 August 2015Ireland: On 2 February 2015, CRH announced that it had reached an agreement to acquire certain assets from Lafarge and Holcim for Euro6.5bn. The deal has now been completed, with the exception of the Philippines, which is expected to close in the third quarter of 2015.
"Today we extend a warm welcome to 15,000 new colleagues joining CRH. With their expertise and talent on board, combined with the strength of our existing employee base, CRH is a step closer to achieving our aim of becoming the world's leading building materials company. The businesses we are acquiring, which represent an excellent geographic fit with CRH's existing operations, are all strong performers in their respective areas. The integration of these high quality assets, which we have acquired at an attractive valuation and at the right point of the cycle, will strengthen our presence in a number of key markets as well as providing new platforms for strategic growth. The additional scale will help us to improve efficiency, speed up innovation and provide an even better service to our customers," said Albert Manifold, CRH chief executive.
The transaction more than doubles CRH's cement production volumes and will further expand its aggregates and ready-mixed concrete portfolios. The acquired assets consist of more than 685 locations in 11 countries and include:
- The largest cement producer in central Canada; an excellent fit with CRH's existing Americas Materials business;
- Major cement and aggregates operations in western Europe's three largest markets: The UK, France and Germany;
- Leading cement and aggregates companies in the growth regions of central and eastern Europe, creating a strong regional cluster in which CRH becomes the number one heavy-side building materials company;
- Entry positions of scale in two emerging economic regions; Brazil and the Philippines.
With the closure, Tarmac and Blue Circle come together to form Tarmac, under the new ownership of CRH, according to Agg-Net. The company's new branding combines the heritage and innovation associated with the Tarmac name and the unique identity of the Blue Circle logo. The newly combined business is now the market leader in aggregates, asphalt, contracting services, lime and powders and is a leading player nationwide in cement, concrete and other building products.
"This is an exciting evolution for our business. With our new owner CRH in place to support the ongoing development and delivery of our strategic vision, we're in an exceptionally strong position to deliver our growth ambitions and continue creating value for our customers, our shareholders and our employees," said Tarmac's CEO, Cyrille Ragoucy, said. Tarmac has confirmed that there will be no change to its relationships with customers, suppliers and other stakeholders.
LafargeHolcim and the power of the mega-merger
09 April 2014The news that Holcim and Lafarge are planning a merger should come as no great surprise to long-term observers of the industry. Such mega-mergers have been periodically mooted over the decades and have already come to pass.
Lafarge took its present form through many acquisitions, but it was the mega-merger with Blue Circle Industries that brought it to pre-eminence. That deal was hard fought, rapidly becoming a hostile takeover after the then-CEO of Blue Circle, Richard Haythornthwaite, decided that the amount that the CEO of Lafarge, Bertrand Coulomb, was offering for his company was not high enough.
A year of claims, counter-claims, offers, rebuffs and haggling ensued, leading to a higher offer that was eventually accepted by the Blue Circle board. However, as Lafarge was a Euro-denominated company and Blue Circle was resolutely British (and was thinking in UK pounds sterling) after exchange rate variations had been taken into account, Lafarge paid less after a year than it had offered in he first place. The British CEO got a big pay-off and went on to greater glory, having appeared to extract a great deal more money (in GB pounds) for his shareholders. Apparently they teach this as a case study in business schools.
Mega-mergers have also shaped other giants in the industry. For example Chichibu-Onoda and Sumitomo-Osaka came together to make Taiheiyo Cement and Ciments Français was added to Italcimenti, although in this last case they still retain their separate identities. Often the deals amount to an accretive takeover by one larger company of a smaller one, but transformative deals consisting of a 'merger' of 'equals' also happen in the cement industry, and with good reason. The merging of research efforts; the optimisation of management; the rationalisation of procurement strategies: all of these will immediately save plenty of money.
However, it's on the financial side that these larger merged companies can sometimes see the most benefit. The cost of borrowing money is inversely proportional to the size of the company (and of the sums involved); the colossal sums demanded by overpaid and greedy bankers will diminish in proportion if the sums involved are larger. So, the cost of borrowing money to be able to invest in takeovers or for capital expenditure will reduce as a proportion of overall cost.
There are other significant potential savings as well, from operational synergies, although these can be harder to quantify and - critically - harder to retain once the competition technocrats have run their slide rules over the proposed deal. They generally do not like too much of the market ending in the hands of too few players.
A good case in point is the recent mega of Tarmac and Lafarge in the UK. To allow the deal to take place the merged company was obliged to sell off one of its key assets, the Hope cement plant, which is now owned and operated by newcomer Hope Construction Materials. Even after the deal has been completed, the market regulator is considering the possibility of making the merged company sell additional facilities, something that strikes Global Cement as 'just not on.'
However, with operations in 90 countries, Lafarge and Holcim can expect to face competition scrutiny in at least 15 countries including Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, France, the UK, the US, Morocco and the Philippines. Meanwhile, in Serbia it has been reported the two companies have a combined market share of 97% across all their business lines!
Lafarge and Holcim have overlapping facilities and distribution networks in a number of countries, and any merged company will probably be required to sell some of them to its competitors. Other companies might be licking their lips at the prospect, as usual CRH is already being lined up in the Irish press, but the units will be sold at a market rate - and not a penny less. It might be that the merged company cannot control which facilities are sold, meaning that they might end up with a less than optimised system. Not so good after all.
If the deal goes through, it will create a Europe-based behemoth with a production capacity of over 200Mt, enough to retain a place on the global top 10 companies with the ever-rationalising and concatenating Chinese companies. When the news first broke we asked what might the new company called? We liked a short mash-up of the two names, like Lolcim (a humorous nod to today's 'youth-speak' perhaps) or Hafarge. However, the level of preparation backing the merger plan soon became clear from financial due-diligence right down to a new name: LafargeHolcim.
Yet for all this co-ordinated work from companies that were meant to be competitors until as recently as March 2014, we should remember what happened to the proposed BHP Billiton-Rio Tinto takeover. Valued at a high of US$170bn it shrivelled up as the global economy collapsed in 2008 amidst concerns from regulators. The idea may be out there but LafargeHolcim has a long way to go before it actually exists.