Displaying items by tag: South Africa

South Africa: The Competition Commission of South Africa has referred Natal Portland Cement (NPC) to the Competition Tribunal. The referral follows the Commission's investigation, between 2008 and 2012, of collusive conduct in the cement cartel against the four main cement producers, NPC, Pretoria Portland Cement Company Limited (PPC), Lafarge Industries South Africa (Lafarge) and AfriSam Consortium (Pty) Ltd (AfriSam).

PPC was granted conditional leniency in terms of the corporate leniency policy of the Commission. AfriSam settled with the Commission and agreed to pay an administrative penalty of US$11.2m representing 3% of its annual turnover in 2010. Lafarge also settled with the Commission and agreed to pay an administrative penalty of US$13m representing 6% of its annual turnover in 2010.

The investigation found that the four cement producers agreed to collude and to divide the cement market by allocating market shares and indirectly fixing the price of cement during a legal cartel in South Africa that ended in 1996. The Competition Commission allege that they subsequently reinforced these collusive arrangements through a series of other agreements, which NPC's representatives were party to, including an agreement to progressively exchange competitively sensitive sales data through the Concrete and Cement Institute of South Africa.

The Commission is pursuing a maximum penalty of 10% of NPC's annual turnover and a Tribunal order that NPC contravened the Competition Act.

South Africa: The board of PPC has been newly-constituted following the company's annual general meeting. Shareholders have elected six new board members. From a reduced list of 10 nominees, shareholders elected former Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni, former PPC finance director Peter Nelson, Nicky Goldin, Timothy Leaf-Wright, former Afrisam CEO Charles Naude and Daniel Ufitikirezi. Ufitikirezi is chairperson of PPC's Rwandan business. The appointment of Darryll Castle as CEO was also approved by shareholders and Tryphosa Ramano retained her position as CFO.

South Africa: The Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA) has appointed Seana Nkhahle from the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) as its new Chairman. Nkhahle takes over the reins from long-time Chairman Bruce Kerswill, who played a leading role in the formation of the council.

The GBCSA was established in 2007 to promote green building development in the country. It is a member of the World Green Building Council (World GBC) and is today one of the most active councils worldwide.

Nkhahle is an Executive Director at SALGA, responsible for 'Corporate Strategy and Research.' Prior to this, he was the Executive Manager and National Programmes Co-ordinator at the South African Cities Network from 2005 to 2009. In 2004, Nkhahle received a recognition award issued jointly by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction.

South Africa: PPC has named a mining industry veteran as CEO, ending a three-month leadership vacuum that has hit its share price. Darryll Castle will take over as CEO from 12 January 2014. Castle previously worked as chief operating officer (COO) at base metal miner Metorex, which has since been acquired by China's Jinchuan Group. A chartered financial analyst, he has been CEO of Trafigura Mining Group and Anvil Mining. Castle's experience includes projects in Zambia, Angola and Tanzania.

South Africa: PPC, South Africa's largest lime and cement maker has said that AfriSam, its competitor, has proposed a merger between the two companies. AfriSam's proposal was conditional and non-binding and prompted PPC's shares to surge on 10 December 2014. This was reported by local media as a sign that the market likes the idea of the merger.

PPC said that its board of directors was currently considering the proposal and would make a further announcement in due course once it has concluded its consideration of the proposal. The firm has been in a state of flux in 2014 due to protracted boardroom wrangling.

South Africa: PPC will reshuffle its board due to shareholder pressure. However, it will not reinstate its former chief executive Ketso Gordhan. In a statement, it said that four of its current directors will step down and be replaced by six new ones, expanding the number of directors to 12, according to Reuters.

Shareholders in PPC were due to vote to remove the board in a resolution put forward by three minority shareholders, who had also backed Gordhan as a director. However, the shareholders have agreed to withdraw that demand in favour of the reshuffling plan. Gordhan was not among the latest set of candidates for new board positions.

PPC shareholders and investors were advised against removing the board to support a return by Gordhan by global shareholder voting research firm Glass Lewis & Company. The US firm told clients in a report that while Gordhan seemed qualified to implement PPC's expansion strategy, he had displayed 'erratic and volatile' behaviour and the company's board had been reasonable in accepting his resignation in September 2014.

Pakistan: Cement producers in Pakistan are considering sourcing their coal from Indonesia instead of South Africa. The move is in response to an on-going investigation initiated by the International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC) on alleged dumping of Portland Cement from Pakistan.

The ITAC intends to finish its investigation by the end of January 2015 with the introduction of a preliminary antidumping duty on import of Pakistan cement in South Africa, according to Pakistan local media. Pakistan's Ministry of Commerce has also raised the matter with its South African counterpart in the meeting of Joint Trade Commission (JTC) of the two countries in South Africa in November 2014 but so far no consensus has been reached between the two countries.

Industry sources have said that five to six Pakistan-based exporters of cement constitute the biggest buyers of South African coal. Pakistan is the third largest buyer of coal from South Africa after China and India. Local cement makers collectively import 3Mt/yr of coal worth US$240m from South Africa and export around 1.3Mt/yr of cement worth US$120m.

South Africa: PPC has concluded an agreement to source waste tyres from the Recycling and Economic Development Initiative of South Africa (Redisa) for use at its De Hoek cement plant in Piketburg, Westerm Cape. PPC is also investigating the possibility of using waste tyres in some of its other plants, according to Azola Lowan, the executive for investor relations and strategy.

Redisa is the only waste tyre management plan approved by the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs and is involved in the collection and processing of waste tyres. Lowan said that the use of the waste tyres in the kilns at the De Hoek plant would be introduced from the middle of 2015 and indications were that the tyres could replace 10% of its coal usage. Lowan also confirmed there was a cost benefit from using the waste tyres instead of coal and a carbon advantage because of the reduced use of coal. Some investment was required in the feeder system to use waste tyres, which meant this initiative would only generate a return over a few years.

Lowan stressed this was one of several environmental and alternative energy initiatives being undertaken by PPC to ensure that PPC is compliant with environmental legislation and regulations by 2020. PPC has already commissioned the use of carbonaceous spent pot liner, a waste material from the aluminium industry, at its Dwaalboom cement plant in Limpopo. "We basically get paid to use that product and again it replaces about 5% of the coal," Lowan said. She added that PPC was also doing a feasibility study on a waste heat recovery (WHR) system at its Dwaalboom plant. PPC also has an agreement with Innowind, which is constructing a 60MW wind farm in the Eastern Cape to provide electricity to PPC's Grassridge quarry.

South Africa: PPC has announced that its full-year profit declined by 9% as its Africa expansion plan failed to offset declining sales in the domestic market. Net income was US$76.7m in the year through November 2014, compared with US$84.1m a year earlier. Sales grew by 9% year-on-year to US$8.13bn. Cement sales volumes grew by 2% year-on-year. "Performance was hampered by industrial action on the platinum belt, which had an adverse impact on trading conditions in South Africa," said PPC.

South Africa: PPC has compiled a shortlist of six candidates to succeed Ketso Gordhan as CEO and will make an appointment after a shareholders' meeting in December 2014, according to chairman Bheki Sibiya.

"We have 85 candidates, of whom six are the cream of the crop," said Sibiya. "We are looking at a person who is going to buy into the board's strategy. We are not looking at anybody who is going to change it."