Displaying items by tag: Headquarters

Sweden: Refractories specialist Höganäs Borgestad opened its new headquarters at Gävle, Gävleborg county on 27 April 2020. The facility will house the Energy and Kiln Engineering, Installation and Management departments.

During the coronavirus lockdown one project of note for Höganäs Borgestad has been refractory maintenance at Germany-based HeidelbergCement subsidiary Norcem’s 1.2Mt/yr Brevik cement plant in Telemark, Norway, for which it supplied 600t of refractories and 45 workers over a three week period.

Spain: Cementos Molins says that 13 of its 14 directors want to keep the company’s headquarters in Madrid following a request by a minority shareholder. This represents a hardening by the board on the issue following its move from near Barcelona in 2017, according to Crónica. The cement producer decided to move its registered address away from Sant Vicenc dels Horts in Catalonia following moves by the regional government to push for independence.

South Africa: PPC has started a cost cutting campaign at its head office following poor cement sales so far in 2018. A source quoted by Business Report told the newspaper that staff redundancies had taken place already. The fall in sales has been blamed on poor local economic growth, the impact of a value added tax (VAT) increase on consumer spending and problems in the construction industry, including a fall in large infrastructure projects and private non-residential building.

US: Air Products is preparing to build a new global headquarters in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. The new site will be situation around 2km from its existing location in Allentown. Ground breaking is expected in March 2019 with occupancy scheduled for the summer of 2021. The new location will be the base for approximately 2000 Air Products employees with capacity for growth.

The decision to change headquarters has been taken to allow the company to modernise its facilities. The new headquarters site will include new administration offices, a research and development (R&D) facility, and an enclosed parking structure for employees.

Air Products operates an industrial gases business providing atmospheric and process gases and related equipment to manufacturing markets, including the cement and lime industries as well as refining and petrochemical, metals, electronics, and food and beverage sectors. Air Products is also a supplier of liquefied natural gas process technology and equipment.

UK: Cemex UK will move its headquarters from Thorpe, Surrey to its offices in Rugby, Warwickshire from 1 July 2018. The new premises were the former global head offices for the Rugby Group until 2000. To date the Rugby offices have provided a regional centre for the company. From July 2018 the senior leadership team and all back-office functions such as taxation, communications and human resources will be based at Rugby, working alongside business areas such as the national customer service centre, Marketing and logistics.

“Rugby lies geographically at the centre of our UK business and with changing patterns of working such as increased working from home and from operational sites, it makes good business sense to consolidate our offices. Rugby and the Rugby brand are at the ‘heart’ of our business and the creation of the new headquarters will ensure greater efficiency and communication,” said Michel Andre, Country President, Cemex UK.

France/Switzerland: LafargeHolcim plans to close its headquarters in Paris. The decision to move the company’s head office solely to Switzerland follows a cost cutting review at the building materials company. It will also close its corporate office in Zurich. Remaining jobs in Switzerland will be moved to the company’s Holderbank site and a new corporate office in Zug. In Paris, remaining positions will be moved to Clamart. The plan is expected to be completed by the end of 2018. Around 200 jobs will be affected.

“This painful but necessary simplification step is key to creating a leaner, faster and more competitive LafargeHolcim,” said chief executive officer Jan Jenisch. The move follows decisions to close offices in Singapore and Miami.

The decision to close its headquarters in Paris marks a further move away from the ‘merger of equals’ announced when France’s Lafarge merged with Switzerland’s Holcim in 2015. Since the merger LafargeHolcim has underperformed reporting a loss of Euro1.46bn in 2017. Former senior executives from Lafarge have become embroiled in a legal investigation looking at the company’s conduct in Syria. LafargeHolcim’s first chief executive officer Eric Olsen resigned from the company in mid-2017 following fallout from a review into the Syria affair.