
Displaying items by tag: HeidelbergCement
North with Cementos Argos
23 August 2016Cementos Argos’ deal to buy the Martinsburg cement plant in West Virginia from HeidelbergCement makes a lot of sense. After all, the Colombian-based cement producer has seen its US cement assets perform well so far in 2016 with a cement sales volumes increase of 29% year-on-year to 1.99Mt and an overall sales revenue boost of 19.7% to US$700m. Compare that to the challenges the company has faced so far this year on its home turf in Colombia. There, cement sales volumes fell by 15.5% to 2.47Mt and sales revenue fell slightly to US$465m.
Argos has picked up the Martinsburg cement plant and eight cement terminals in the surrounding states for US$660m. The sale was mandated by the US Federal Trade Commission as one of the conditions of HeidelbergCement’s purchase of Italcementi including its US subsidiary Essroc, the current owner of the plant.
Symbolically, the purchase takes Argos right up to the Mason–Dixon line, the old survey line sometimes used to describe the dividing line between the so-called ‘north’ and ‘south’ in the US. The cement plant is south of the line in West Virginia but some of the cement terminals are firmly in the north-east. Outside of the company’s home turf in Colombia it has a maritime presence around the Gulf of Mexico. Although Martinsburg is inland, the new terminals in Norfolk, Virginia and Baltimore push Argos’ distribution network up the east coast. This could potentially push Argos into conflict with the subject of last week’s column, McInnis Cement, a Canadian cement plant under construction with eventual aspirations to sell its cement to the US.
Back in the US specifically the new plant will bring Argos’ total of integrated cement plants to four, joining Roberta in Alabama, Newberry in Florida and Harleyville in South Carolina. All together the producer will have a production capacity of around 6Mt/yr in the US following the acquisition. Back in 2014 when Global Cement visited Martinsburg the plant was distributing its cement about 60:40 via truck and rail. At that time the plant was shifting cement in an area from central Ohio eastwards to western Pennsylvania and south to southern Virginia, as well as in North Carolina.
Argos has paid US$300/t for Martinsburg’s production capacity of 2.2Mt/yr. As ever determining the cost of the terminals proves difficult. This compares to the US$267t/yr that Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC) paid to pick up two plants from Cemex in May 2016 or the US$375/t that Summit Materials paid Lafarge for a cement plant and seven terminals in July 2015. Previous Argos purchases in the US were around US$220 – 250/t for deals with Lafarge and Vulcan in 2011 and 2014 respectively. It is also worth considering that Essroc upgraded Martinsburg significantly in 2010 to a dry-process kiln and that the site has a waste-to-solid-fuel plant from Entsorga due to become operational in 2017.
The purchase of Martinsburg by Argos seems like an obvious move. It predicts a compound annual growth rate of 5.4% for cement consumption in the American states it operates within between 2016 and 2020. However, this may be optimistic given that the Portland Cement Association’s chief economist Ed Sullivan has downgraded his consumption forecasts for the US as a whole to 3.4% from 5% as he waits for the recovery to really kick in. The southern US states have also recovered faster since a low in 2009 than the northeastern ones. The purchase marks a new chapter in Cementos Argos’ expansion strategy
Hanson Cement promotes Mark Hickingbottom and Andy Simpson
23 August 2016UK: Hanson Cement has appointed Mark Hickingbottom as its national commercial director for bulk cement and Andy Simpson as its national commercial director – packed. The appointments follow the recent retirement of commercial director Keith Ellis.
Hickingbottom has sales and marketing experience within Hanson’s bulk cement team, as well as a degree in Business Management. He is an associate member of The Institute of Concrete Technology and has spent over 12 years at Hanson delivering strategic plans across its product range.
Simpson, previously responsible for sales of all Hanson’s packed products, will build on developing trading relations with merchant customers as well as working with internal teams. He has over 15 years’ experience with Hanson and holds a degree in Business Studies.
Half-year roundup for European cement multinationals
10 August 2016LafargeHolcim was the last major European cement producer to release its second quarter financial results last week. The collective picture is confused. Cement sales volumes have risen but sales revenue have fallen.
Most of the producers have blamed negative currency effects for their falls in revenue during the first half of 2016. Holding a mixed geographical portfolio of building materials production assets has kept these companies afloat over the last decade but this has come with a price. The recent appreciation of the Euro versus currencies in various key markets, such as in Egypt, has hit balance sheets, since the majority of these firms are based in Europe and mostly use the Euro for their accounting. Meanwhile, sales volumes of cement have mostly risen for the companies we have examined making currency effects a major contributor.
Graph 1 - Changes in cement sales volumes for major non-Chinese cement producers in the first half of 2016 compared to the first half of 2015 (%). Data labels are the volumes reported in 2016. Source: Company reports.
As can be seen in Graph 1, sales volumes have risen for most of the producers, with the exception of LafargeHolcim. Despite blaming shortages of gas in Nigeria for hitting its operating income, LafargeHolcim actually saw its biggest drop in sales volumes in Latin America by 13.2% year-on-year to 11.8Mt. The other surprise here was that its North American region reported a 2.7% fall to 8.8Mt with Canada the likely cause. Vicat deserves mention here for its giant boost in sales volumes due to recovery in France and good performance in Egypt and the US, amongst other territories.
Graph 2 - Changes in sales revenue for major non-Chinese cement producers in the first half of 2016 compared to the first half of 2015 (%). Data labels are the sales reported in 2016. Source: Company reports.
Overall sales revenue for these companies presents a gloomier scenario with the majority of them losing revenue in the first half of the year, with most of them blaming negative currency effects for this. Titan is included in this graph to show that it’s not all bad news. Its growth in revenue was supported by good performance in the US and Egypt. Likewise, good performance in Eastern Europe and the US helped Buzzi Unicem turn in a positive increase in its sales revenue. They remain, however, the exception.
Looking at sales revenue generated from cement offers one way to disentangle currency effects from performance. Unfortunately, only about half of the companies looked at here actually published this for the reporting period. Of these, LafargeHolcim reported a massive rise that was probably due to the accounting coping with the merger process that finalised in 2015. Of the rest - HeidelbergCement, Italcementi and Vicat – the sales revenue from each company’s cement businesses fell at a faster rate than overall sales. Like-for-like figures here would help clarify this situation.
Meanwhile, a mixed global patchwork of cement demand is focusing multinational attention on key countries with growing economies like Egypt and Nigeria. Both of these countries have undergone currency devaluation versus the Euro and are facing energy shortages for various reasons. The exposure of the multinational cement producers to such places may become clearer in the second half of the year.
Cementir quietly grows its business
27 July 2016And the winner of the Italcementi assets in Belgium is… Cementir. The Italian multinational cement producer picked up Compagnie des Ciments Belges for Euro312m this week. The deal included all of Italcementi's cement, ready-mix and aggregates assets in Belgium, Italcementi's stake in an existing limestone joint-venture with LafargeHolcim and a portion of HeidelbergCement's limestone quarry in Antoing. It was offered by HeidelbergCement to the European Commission to ensure approval of its acquisition of Italcementi.
The assets from Compagnie des Ciments Belges comprise one 2.5Mt/yr integrated cement plant, three terminals and 10 ready-mix concrete plants. As ever, the add-ons confuse the final price but the deal values the cement production capacity at Euro125/t or US$138/t. This figures seems low compared to the other big sale this week of Holcim Lanka to Siam City Cement. There, the Thai producer picked up an integrated cement plant and a grinding plant with a combined cement production capacity of 1.6Mt/yr for US$400m. That values the cement production capacity at US$250/t.
Increasing its presence in western Europe makes a lot of sense for Cementir. It’s one of the smaller European multinational cement producers with 14 cement plants, often white cement producers, in Italy, Turkey, Denmark, Egypt, the US, China and Malaysia. Altogether this comes to 15.1Mt/yr in cement production capacity. In its press release, Cementir described Gaurain-Ramecroix, the cement plant it is buying, as the largest integrated cement plant in France-Benelux, region with ‘state-of-the-art’ technology and long-life mineral reserves.
Italcementi reported a 2.9% year-on-year fall in cement and clinker sales volumes in Belgium in 2015, noting a general reduction in cement consumption in all areas of the construction industry. The mineral reserves were confirmed at least as environmental clearance as granted and work began at the new Barry quarry at Gaurain-Ramecroix.
Cementir has rebuilt its revenue since hitting a high of Euro1.15bn in 2007 although it dipped again in 2014. Despite this ordinary portland and white cement sales volumes have been slowly falling from a high of 10.5Mt in 2011 to 9.37Mt in 2015. That said though its businesses in Scandinavia generated just under half of its operating revenue in 2015. So far in 2016, total group revenue rose by 2.8% to Euro210m in the first quarter of the year, with a fair portion of that attributable to Scandinavia. Bolting on a cement and concrete business in (relatively) nearby Belgium makes sense in this context provided the construction market eventually rallies.
Yet, another on-going Cementir acquisition back home in Italy may make the company reflect on the risks of buying assets in Belgium. Cementir is drawing closer to purchasing the cement and concrete arm of Sacci as it plans to pick up five cement plants and assorted ready-mix concrete assets for the bargain price of Euro125m, following a protracted bankruptcy. Cementir may remember that Lafarge sold some of these assets to Sacci for Euro290m in 2008 before the situation deteriorated. The top brass at Cementir must be praying that the Sacci’s fate doesn’t await them in Belgium.
HeidelbergCement set for acquisition of Italcementi
22 June 2016The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) gave HeidelbergCement permission to complete its acquisition of Italcementi assets in the US on 17 June 2016. This was the second and final major competition body that could have challenged the purchase, following approval by the European Commission in late May 2016. Although the FTC consent now faces a month for comment the deal is looking likely to complete towards the end of the summer.
HeidelbergCement and Italcementi have gotten away with having to sell just one cement plant and 11 terminals in the US. The Lafarge-Holcim merger in 2015 had it tougher. Those companies were forced to sell two cement plants, two slag grinding plant and a host of terminals. Admittedly LafargeHolcim is now the biggest cement producer in the US (and the world) but HeidelbergCement will hold more integrated cement plants in the US following its acquisition.
As predicted the FTC took exception with the proximity of the company’s assets in West Virginia and Pennsylvania following the acquisition. So the parties have agreed to sell the Essroc Martinsburg integrated cement plant in West Virginia. When Global Cement visited the plant in late 2013 the staff told us that cement from the plant was distributed from central Ohio eastwards to western Pennsylvania and south to southern Virginia. The plant also switched over to a FLSmidth dry production line in 2010 giving it a clinker production capacity of 1.6Mt/yr, making it one of the newer plants in the Essroc stable.
The FTC also flagged up competition concerns in five metropolitan areas: Baltimore-Washington, DC; Richmond, Virginia; Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, Virginia; Syracuse, New York; and Indianapolis, Indiana. In light of this the proposed consent agreement requires the merged company to divest seven Essroc terminals in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania and a Lehigh terminal in Solvay, New York. Two additional Essroc terminals in Columbus and Middlebranch, Ohio are to be sold at the option of the buyer and subject to FTC approval. Finally, Essroc’s terminal in Indianapolis is to be sold to Cemex.
Funnily enough, the FTC took about a year to approve both the merger of Lafarge and Holcim and HeidelbergCement’s purchase of Italcementi. This compares to the European Commission which took nine months to approve the Lafarge-Holcim deal but which took 11 months to clear the HeidelbergCement-Italcementi one. Given the greater overlap of assets of the Lafarge-Holcim merger in both Europe and the US one might have thought that the approval process would have taken longer. Or maybe bureaucracy moves at a speed all of its own. Read into this what you will. The creation of the world’s second largest multinational cement producer draws closer.
Cement company CEO pay
04 May 2016In April 2016 the shareholders of BP voted against a pay package of US$20m for the company's chief executive officer (CEO) Bob Dudley. The vote was non-binding to BP but it clearly sent a message to the management. Subsequently, the chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg acknowledged the mood amongst the company's investors and stated in his speech at the annual general meeting that, "We hear you. We will sit down with our largest shareholders to make sure we understand their concerns and return to seek your support for a renewed policy."
The link to the cement industry here is that many of the world's major cement producers are public companies. Similar to BP they internally set CEO and leading executive pay and remuneration packages. Just like BP, cement companies too could run into similar complaints from their shareholders, for example, should the construction and cement markets have similar jolts that the oil industry has faced since mid-2014.
To be clear: this article is not attempting to pass judgement on how much these CEOs are being compensated. It is merely seeing how compensation compares amongst a selection of leading cement companies. LafargeHolcim's revenue in 2015 was greater than the gross domestic product of over 90 countries. Running companies of this size is a demanding job. What is interesting here is how it compares and what happens when it is perceived to have grown too high, as in the case of BP.
It should also be noted that this is an extremely rough comparison of the way CEO pay and wage bills for large companies are presented. For example, the CEO total salary includes incentives, shares and pension payments. The staff wage bills includes pension payments, social charges and suchlike.
Graph 1: Comparison of CEO total remuneration from selected cement companies in 2015. Source: Company annual reports.
There isn't a great deal to comment here except that compared to the average wage these are high from a rank-and-file worker perspective! The total salary for Eric Olsen, the CEO of LafargeHolcim, is lower than HeidelbergCement and Italcementi, which seems odd given that LafargeHolcim is the bigger company. However, Olsen has only been in-post since mid-2015. By contrast, Bernd Scheifele became the chairman of the managing board of HeidelbergCement in 2005. Carlo Pesenti, CEO of Italcementi and part of the controlling family, took over in 2004. Albert Manifold, CEO of CRH, also sticks out with a relatively (!) low salary given the high revenue of the company.
Graph 2: Comparison of CEO remuneration to average staff cost and total company revenue in 2015. Source: Company annual reports.
This starts to become more interesting. HeidelbergCement's higher CEO/staff and CEO/revenue ratios might be explained by Scheifele's longer tenure. Yet Italcementi definitely sticks out with a much higher CEO wage compared to both the average staff wage and the company's revenue. Again, CRH stands out with a much lower CEO/staff ratio. Dangote's CEO/staff ratio is low but its CEO/revenue ratio is in line with the other companies' figures.
Consider the figures for China Resources and this suggests that CEO/revenue ratio may be more important than the CEO/staff ratio. The implication being that the market will only tolerate a ratio of up to about 0.05%. Any higher and the CEO's family has to own the company. Which, of course, is the case with Carlo Pesenti and Italcementi. Until HeidelbergCement takes over later in 2016 that is.
That’s as far as this rough little study of CEO remuneration at cement companies will go. So, next time anybody reading this article from a cement company asks for a pay rise, consider how much your CEO is receiving.
Update on HeidelbergCement acquisition of Italcementi
13 April 2016HeidelbergCement released more detail on its plans to buy Italcementi last week. The main points were that Italcementi’s operations in Belgium will be sold, the Italcementi brand will be retained, its research and development (R&D) centre will assume responsibilities for the entire group and up to 260 job losses are expected in Bergamo. The integration plan is expected to be complete by 2020.
Following an update in HeidelbergCement’s preliminary financial results for 2015 in February 2016, this was more focused on the practicalities of taking over a company. Sales of assets in Belgium were expected from the moment the deal was announced in July 2015. Between them the two companies operate three of the country’s four cement plants, holding 73% of the market by cement production capacity. Selling up Italcementi’s Belgian subsidiary Compagnie des Ciments Belges will maintain the existing market balance. Once this is done, from a cement sector perspective, interaction from the European Commission on the deal should merely be a formality.
Interestingly, no plans to sell assets in the US were announced. This is more ambitious on HeidelbergCement’s part because the acquisition has far bigger implications in that country. Merging Italcementi’s Essroc subsidiary and HeidelbergCement’s Lehigh Hanson subsidiary will see HeidelbergCement become the new second largest cement producer in the US with around 16.4Mt/yr. LafargeHolcim had a relatively easy ride from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) having to sell two integrated cement plants, two slag grinding plants and a series of terminals. As HeidelbergCement will become the second largest cement producer it seems unlikely that the FTC will be too demanding. However, post-acquisition the cement producer will own cement plants within 75 miles of each other in Pennsylvania and in Maryland and West Virginia. The FTC may take exception to this but perhaps HeidelbergCement is trying their luck to see if it can get away with it.
The decision to retain Italcementi’s i.Lab R&D centre in Bergamo, Italy raises questions about what will happen to the Heidelberg Technology Centre (HTC) in Leimen, Germany. The focus here is on making Bergamo the ‘product’ R&D division for the entire group. i.Lab was opened in early 2012 to fanfare, based in a building designed by architect Richard Meier and it cost Euro40m to build. How this fits with HeidelbergCement’s existing Global R&D team at the HTC remains to be seen.
Job losses of up to 260 personnel at Bergamo are regrettable but hardly unexpected. It may not be much comfort for any staff members facing redundancy but this figure is well below the figures bandied about in the media in late 2015 of first around 1000 and then nearer 500. Another 170 personnel will also be offered relocation packages taking the impact of the reorganisation up to about 400 of Italcementi’s 2500 workforce in Italy.
Looking at the wider situation with the acquisition this week, HeidelbergCement announced a record contract for Norcem, its Norwegian subsidiary, to supply 280,000t of cement over three years for an infrastructure project. Then, Carlo Pesenti, the chief executive officer of Italcementi, was reported making comments about the business’ expansion plans in Thailand and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Projects in Myanmar and Cambodia look likely once the acquisition is complete. Finally, the ratings agency Moody’s was drumming up attention for a market report by pointing out the implications for the multinational cement producers in India if a proposed rise in infrastructure spending gets approved. In summary HeidelbergCement and Italcementi are unlikely to benefit due to their southern Indian spread of assets and local production overcapacity.
HeidelbergCement may not be getting it all its own way but the acquisition of Italcementi remains on track so far. All eyes will be on how the US FTC responds to the deal.
Roundup of non-Chinese cement producers in 2015
30 March 2016LafargeHolcim was the last of the major non-Chinese cement producers to report its annual financial results when it did so on 17 March 2016. With the full set in, as it were, Global Cement will compare the progress of the world’s largest multinational cement companies in 2015.
The first thing to note is that whilst cement production growth rates have hardly been inspiring in 2015, growth or holding the status quo is occurring. The emerging markets have faced challenges in 2015 following the prolonged depression in the construction sector in Europe since 2008. As Wolfgang Reitzle and Eric Olsen put it in the forward of the 2015 LafargeHolcim annual report, “…our share price has been significantly affected, mainly by the volatility associated with emerging markets.”
Figure 1: Cement & clinker sales volumes from five major cement producers, 2011 – 2015. Source: Annual reports. Note: Sales volumes are calculated for LafargeHolcim for 2011 – 2013.
Figure 1 shows cement and clinker sales volumes for the major cement producers from 2011 to 2015. This graph isn’t quite as depressing as it looks because it shows a drop in cement production for the major producers and it has started to show remedial action being taken. Where growth isn’t happening in a market, pressure builds to find it through mergers and acquisitions.
So, Lafarge and Holcim merged and the decision may be now starting to show promise with its sales volumes remaining static year-on-year in 2015 rather than falling. It should be noted here that the drop from 2013 to 2014 is due to the divestments Lafarge and Holcim both made before the merger to satisfy competition bodies and because the sales volumes were calculated here from the separate Lafarge and Holcim annual reports.
Even more so, HeidelbergCement’s plan to buy Italcementi may be a good idea here. Already it has been growing its cement production each year since 2013. The acquisition could potentially speed up the growth considerably. Elsewhere, both Cemex and Buzzi Unicem are showing signs of picking up cement production since 2013.
Figure 2: Earnings before interest and taxation (EBIT) for five major cement producers, 2011 – 2015. Source: Annual reports. Note: Cemex and LafargeHolcim figures have been converted from US Dollars and Swiss Francs respectively at current exchange rates.
Figure 2 shows one indicator of profitability for the major cement producers by comparing their earnings before interest and taxation (EBIT). This is less useful than cement sales volumes because it covers the producers’ entire businesses including aggregate and concrete sectors. However, it does show the problems Italcementi has faced and it offers one reason why the company might have allowed itself to be taken over. Note also how Cemex has continued to increase its EBIT despite its high levels of debts.
Returning to the LafargeHolcim comments about volatile emerging markets, most of the producers reported tough trading in their Asian territories in 2015. The exceptions were Cemex with its reliance on the Philippines booming market and Buzzi with its limited assets in the region. However, Cemex suffered in its own major emerging market in South and Central America. Despite these setbacks though all of the producers featured here benefitted from growing sales volumes in North America, particularly in the US.
Both LafargeHolcim and Cemex announced divestments promptly following their results announcements suggesting that they feel they need to do more to regain the profitability they once had. LafargeHolcim plans to sell assets in South Korea and Saudi Arabia. Cemex has agreed to sell cement plants in Bangladesh and Thailand and a minority stake in its business in the Philippines. This last decision may suggest how serious Cemex is about tackling its debts considering the strong market in that country at present. HeidelbergCement is due to complete its acquisition of Italcementi in the second half of 2016.
Finally, the major changes to the multinational cement producers will continue in 2016 as CRH asserts itself following its major acquisitions from Lafarge and Holcim in 2015. Already its Europe Heavyside Divison reported sales revenue of Euro3.61bn in 2015 surpassing that of Buzzi Unicem. Other international producers such as Eurocement, InterCement and Votorantim were also poised for continuing growing but poor domestic markets (Russia and Brazil) may cripple their ambitions in the short term.
New technical development manager joins Hanson Cement
30 March 2016UK: Hanson Cement has appointed Robert Keough as technical development manager at its cement plant in Ketton, Lincolnshire. His role will involve promoting the sustainability credentials of concrete specifications and emphasising the use of ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) as a sustainable cement replacement product.
Keough has two years’ experience working for Hanson UK’s parent company, HeidelbergCement Group, as an engineer in training, giving him a firm foundation in the organisation’s values. During this time he worked in the continuous improvement team where he focused on reducing costs and increasing operational performance across the aggregates business.
Keough, aged 26 years, holds a bachelors degree in chemistry with management from the University of Bath and a master’s degree in minerals engineering from the University of Exeter. He holds experience with the financial services company Hargreaves Lansdown.
Update on HeidelbergCement takeover of Italcementi
17 February 2016HeidelbergCement has finally provided a little more detail about its acquisition of Italcementi with the releases of its preliminary results for 2015. The key message is that all is well. Expected savings from the takeover are growing, less borrowing is required to make the purchase and the approvals from competition commissions around the world are rolling in.
Looking at the cost savings first, the potential for synergies or operational savings was first estimated at Euro175m at the time of the takeover announcement in late July 2015. At that time HeidelbergCement hoped to be able to deliver almost 30% of this figure in 2016. If it goes ahead this will sweeten the honeymoon period considerably following the completion of the deal. The largest savings were expected to come from the commercial area and in purchasing.
This figure then grew to Euro300m at the time of HeidelbergCement’s third quarter results in November 2015. Now, the effects of financing costs and taxes were included. At this point some more strategy about how HeidelbergCement was planning to use Italcementi’s resources started to emerge in the synergy calculations. HeidelbergCement intends to use its global trading business with Italcementi’s ‘export orientated’ cement plants. Import demand, for example in North America or Africa, that used to be bought from third party sources previously, can now be supplied by Italcementi’s plants after the merger, meeting demand and holding capacity utilisation rates up. With the publication of the preliminary results for 2015 the savings figure has grown to Euro400m with little explanation. If only it were that easy to find Euro100m down the back of my sofa.
The financing has also been proceeding smoothly. The loan value required for the takeover has fallen from Euro4.4bn to Euro2bn. Reasons for this include the exclusion of the risk of a mandatory takeover offer to minority shareholders in Morocco, some of Italcementi’s creditor banks agreeing to waive their change of control clauses and the issuance of a Euro625m bond in January 2016. The bridge financing, available initially from Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley, remains at Euro2.7bn.
Finally, competition commission approval has been granted in India, Canada, Morocco and Kazakhstan. Despite holding a cement product capacity of 10.5Mt/yr in India with 4.1Mt/yr additional capacity in development, this was unlikely to be a problem in India, with its total national capacity of 280Mt/yr. The commission implemented the Elzinga Hogarty Test and concluded that there is sufficient competition.
This leaves the possibly trickier approvals outstanding in Europe and the US. Belgium is likely to be the main issue in Europe given that the two companies run 73% or 4.5Mt/yr of the market in production capacity. Divestments are expected here.
In the US, precedent should save HeidelbergCement from interference. HeidelbergCement’s and Italcementi’s combined cement production assets will give it a production capacity of 16.4Mt/yr or around 14% or market share. This will make it the second biggest producer in the country after LafargeHolcim which had its merger approved in 2015. There are no obvious overlaps in their clinker production assets except for a minor one in Pennsylvania which holds both the 2Mt/yr Ordinary Portland Cement Essroc (Italcementi) Nazareth Plant and the 0.13Mt/yr Lehigh White Cement (HeidelbergCement). These two plants are unlikely to be considered in competition with each other.
So, continued smooth sailing is expected for the takeover. Since most of the information regarding the acquisition has come directly from HeidelbergCement it was unlikely to appear otherwise. Let’s see whether this remains the case when Italcementi releases its financial results for 2015 later in the week on 19 February 2016.