Displaying items by tag: Denmark

Denmark: FLSmidth has reported ‘increasing disruptions to customers’ and its own operations’ and higher costs due to ‘more complex logistics and a weaker fixed cost absorption’ following the coronavirus outbreak. It says that around half of employees are working remotely.

FLSmidth continues its business improvement initiatives launched in 2019 and has implemented a capital expenditure (CAPEX) reduction, salary adjustment postponement and hiring freezes.

Tunisia: Carthage Cement has submitted a statement to Tunisian police in which it alleges false testimony by FLSmidth’s lawyer who advised the Danish supplier in a criminal case which saw one employee sentenced to five years for illegal payments to Carthage Cement’s owners in 2017. Ritzau Finans newspaper has reported that FLSmidth’s management admitted to knowledge of the payments on 21 February 2020, something it had denied to authorities when under investigation prior to the trial, which concluded in November 2019.

Denmark: FLSmidth has increased the sales from its cement division despite ‘challenging’ marketing conditions. Its revenue grew by 3% year-on-year to Euro1.13bn in 2019 from Euro1.10bn in 2018. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 28% to Euro65m from Euro51m. It achieved this despite its order intake falling by 16% to Euro1bn from Euro1.19bn. It attributed its revenue increase to high order backlog conversion and positive currency exchange effects. Internal efficiency measures and a ‘selective’ approach to large projects were also said to have helped.

“We were pleased to see that the financial performance of our Cement business showed a positive development despite challenging market conditions,” said FLSmidth Group chief executive officer (CEO) Thomas Schulz. He added that sustainability and digitalisation would be key differentiators in the coming years and that the engineering company was ‘well-positioned’ in both areas.

Vietnam: The Vietnam National Cement Corporation (Vicem) and Denmark-based supplier FLSmidth have announced a cooperation agreement with the aim of radically reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from cement production and improving air quality. The cooperation will consist of Vicem implementing solutions pioneered by FLSmidth. FLSmidth said that a key focus of the cooperation will be Vicat’s use of ‘municipal and other waste streams as alternative fuel sources,’ with the aim of achieving 100% substitution using FLSmidth solutions, in accordance with FLSmidth’s ambition ‘to enable cement companies to operate with zero emissions by 2030.’

Denmark: FLSmidth has announced details of the business improvement initiative it gave forewarning of in late 2019. The cement technology supplier is sacking 500 staff. Its most recent Annual Report stated that it had 11,368 staff at the end of 2018, meaning that around 4.4% of employees will lose their jobs. 80 of these redundancies will effect employees at its Copenhagen headquarters, with the remainder impacting personnel at operations across the globe. “Despite a healthy pipeline, this is an unfortunate yet necessary action given the weakening market for large capital investments in 2019 and our ongoing efforts to improve internal efficiency,” said FLSmidth CEO Thomas Schulz.

Denmark: FLSmidth’s chief financial officer (CFO) Lars Vestergaard has agreed with the board of directors to resign from the company, effective immediately. FLSmidth has stated as the reason for the change a need for ‘a different set of competences to strengthen our organisation and execute long-term financial targets.’ It thanked Vestergaard for his commitment and dedication in helping FLSmidth achieve milestones in ‘creating a stronger and more focused organisation. FLSmidth Head of Group Reporting and Compliance Naja Barrisøe supersedes Vestergaard as interim CFO until the newly appointed CFO joins the company on or before 1 July 2020.

Denmark: FLSmidth has recorded a third-quarter profit of Euro25.4m in the three months to 30 September 2019, up by 17% year-on-year from Euro21.7m in the corresponding period of 2018. Its revenue over the period rose by 9.3% to Euro634m from Euro580m. FLSmidth CEO Thomas Schulz noted the delivery of supply operations to the cement industry on expected profitability.

Denmark: FLSmidth’s order intake for its cement business grew by 29% to Euro604m in the first half of 2019 from Euro469m in the same period in 2018. It said this was mainly due to ‘strong’ order intake in the first quarter of 2019, which included two large cement orders, together worth around Euro120m. The second quarter also included a larger order worth Euro45m. The division’s revenue rose by 7% to Euro548m and its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) remained stable at Euro28.4m.

Denmark: FLSmidth has completed its acquisition of IMP Automation Group following the approval by the competition authorities. The purchase was first announced in February 2019 when FLSmidth said it was adding the company as part to its portfolio of automated laboratory solutions for the mining industry. It said that the integration of IMP would enable FLSmidth to support the expanding market for automated laboratories, which has experienced recent growth due to a combination of high exploration activity and increased focus on productivity, automation and digitalisation.

"We also see great potential from the joining of our new colleagues to further enhance the development of our digital solutions for mining. For instance, data collected from online analysers and the laboratory can be used to optimise the entire flow sheet for mining operations. Using this data to augment our process optimisation initiatives is an exciting prospect," said Tina Knudsen, FLSmidth’s general manager for Sampling, Preparation and Analysis – Mining.

FLSmidth gains 130 IMP employees, including IMP's managing director, Boyne Hohenstein. The IMP business will be consolidated into FLSmidth from 1 June 2019 and the cost of the purchase will be paid out in the second quarter of 2019.

Denmark: FLSmidth has launched ECS/UptimeGo, a downtime analysis product designed to increase plant uptime by identifying the causes of plant and equipment failures. Real-time dashboards and key performance indicators (KPIs) enable the measurement of the real impact of machine failures interrupting the production. In addition, ECS/UptimeGo provides Pareto charts and the ability to monitor maintenance and reliability KPIs to give operators a picture of a downtime event and its causes.

ECS/UptimeGo can be integrated with existing process control systems and can be paired with FLSmidth ECS/ControlCenter for an automated process to gather all production stoppages. It also features a graphic interface that allows operators to document and analyse stoppages.