Displaying items by tag: Titan Cement

Greece: Titan Group’s profit dropped by 5.5% year-on-year to Euro50.9m in 2019, from Euro53.8m in 2018. The group said that it ‘demonstrated strength’ in ‘sustaining a growth performance’ despite challenges in Southeastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. Sales were Euro1.61bn, up by 8.0% from Euro1.49bn in 2018, led by Titan Group’s US subsidiary Titan America’s sales growth of 10.7%, to Euro952m from Euro860m. Titan Group’s Greece and Western Europe sales grew to Euro245m, up by 3.3% from Euro237m in 2018, with sales gains from the private sector offsetting the decreased revenue from delays in public infrastructure projects. Cement exports, especially to the US, were also a major regional sales contributor, while clinker exports fell.

Group volumes of cement, including clinker and cementitious materials, were 17.0Mt, down by 7% from 18.2Mt.

US: FCT combustion has announced that it has won an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract with Titan Cement for the upgrade of its 5000t/d kiln line to 100% natural gas firing. The upgrade consists of the installation of two new burners: a dual-fuel capability Gyro-Therm Mk3 and a back-up natural gas-firing Gyro-Therm Mk3. The company has said that it will also supply accessories, field instruments, burner management system (BMS) and valve train.

Egypt: Alexandria Portland Cement has reduced its margin of loss by 40% year-on-year to US$15.2m in 2019 from US$25.3m in 2018.

Greece-based Titan Cement is the 89% owner of Alexandria Portland Cement via its subsidiary Alexandria Development Ltd.

Greece: Titan Cement has opened the Group Digital Centre of Competence, a facility which it says will consolidate its digital and advanced analytics capabilities. Titan says the Centre ‘accelerates its digital efforts’ set out under its Group Digital Initiative. “This is an essential part of efforts to increase operational efficiency and competitiveness,” said the company.

Egypt: Alexandria Development Ltd, which owns an 88.93% stake in Alexandria Portland Cement, has submitted an offer for the remaining 11.07% of the company. In a statement to the Egyptian Exchange it stated its intention to delist Alexandria Portland Cement after completing its acquisition of the latter. Alexandria Development Ltd’s indirect owner is Greece-based Titan Cement.

Egypt: Greek-owned Titan Cement has made a major acquisition in buying the International Finance Corporation (IFC)’s 17.3% stake in Alexandria Development Ltd. Alexandria Development Ltd is 82.7% indirectly held by Titan Cement. It is the 88.9% owner of Alexandria Portland Cement, according to Mubasher. Alexandria Portland Cement made losses of US$4.56m in the nine months to 30 September 2019.

Greece: Titan Cement has increased its nine-month turnover by 9.7% year-on-year to US$1.21bn to 30 September 2019 from US$1.10m in the corresponding period of 2018. Net profit after tax fell by 9.9% year-on-year to US$45.3m from US$50.2m. The company noted progressive sales momentum growth throughout the period, with profitability in all regions except the Eastern Mediterranean, and projected further growth with the continued recovery of markets in Southeastern Europe.

UK: The Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) has launched ‘Innovandi,’ a research network between industry and scientific institutions. The network intends to research the areas of process technology, including the impact of co-processing, efficiency of clinker production and implementation of CCUS/ technologies, and products. This will include the impact of clinker substitutes and alternative binders in concrete, low carbon concrete technology and improve the understanding of CO₂ reduction through re-carbonation.

“Our industry is fully committed to taking action to reduce CO₂ emissions. As such, Innovandi is an industry led initiative and will bring together the best minds from all corners of the cement and concrete world, academia and business. Together we will truly collaborate on a global scale and use our expertise to find new ways of working and developing effective innovations,” said Benjamin Sporton, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the GCCA.

24 companies from the cement and concrete industry, including cement and concrete manufacturers, admixture specialists and equipment suppliers, have committed to the initiative, with scientific institutions and additional companies set to join as its work begins work. These include Buzzi Unicem, Cementir Holding, Cementos Argos, Cementos Molins, Cementos Pacasmayo, Cemento Progresso, Cemex, CNBM, Chryso, CRH, Dalmia Cement, FLSmidth, Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC), GCP Applied Technologies, Mapei, HeidelbergCement, LafargeHolcim, Nesher Israel Enterprises, SCG Cement, Titan Cement, Refratechnik Cement, Sika Technology, Subote New Materials and Votorantim.

As part of the new initiative, the GCCA also intends to establish an annual Innovandi global conference to promote collaboration on innovation and research in the sector.

With a good number of the financial results published by the non-Chinese multinational cement producers for the first half of 2019, it is now time for a roundup. Graphs 1 and 2 below lay some of the basics with the general sales revenue and cement production volume trends.

Graph 1: Sales revenues from large multinational cement producers in the first half of 2019 and 2018. Source: Company reports.

Graph 2: Cement sales volumes from large multinational cement producers in first half of 2019 and 2018. Source: Company reports.

This is only part of the picture as the larger companies had various complications. For example, LafargeHolcim’s apparent falling revenue and sales volumes is mainly due to its massive divestments in South-East Asia. On a like-for-like basis its sales and sales volumes of cement rose. Its recurring earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) better illustrated this with a rise of 7.2% year-on-year in real-terms to Euro2.41bn in the first half of 2019 from Euro2.25bn from 2018. The company didn’t have it all its own way though with falling cement sales volumes in Asia despite the divestment and poor growth in its Middle East Africa region.

By contrast HeidelbergCement reported growing sales but its earnings and profits were down. Its profit fell by 33% to Euro291m from Euro435m. This was blamed on the group’s sale of its Ukraine subsidiary in April 2019. The operations were sold to Overin Limited, part of Ukrainian investment company Concorde Capital Group, for Euro13m. HeidelbergCement said that the divestment resulted in a loss of Euro143m. Aside from this, as Bernd Scheifele, the chairman of the managing board of HeidelbergCement, explained, positives in markets in Asia, Western and Southern Europe compensated for weaker business in North America and the Africa-Eastern Mediterranean Basin Group area.

Cemex has a tougher time of it than its larger rivals due its greater reliance on American markets. Slow starts to infrastructure projects were blamed in Mexico, poor weather hit earnings in the US and problems occurred further south too. Luckily Europe was strong for the company with lots of good news areas. It wasn’t enough though as Cemex’s sales fell by 4% to US$6.72bn from US$7bn and its operating EBITDA dropped by 11% to US$1.21bn from US$1.36bn.

As for the other companies covered in the graphs, Buzzi Unicem and Titan Group prospered due to the US market. The former described its US activity as ‘lively.’ However, it admitted that its sales growth there was mainly caused by falling imports in the face of weak domestic demand and ‘considerable production and logistical difficulties’ in June 2019 caused by flooding of the Mississippi river. Titan, meanwhile, caught a well-deserved break after recent years with growth also in Greece and Southeastern Europe. Vicat managed to stave off a decline in sales due to poor markets in Turkey, Switzerland, Indian and West Africa through its acquisition of Brazil’s Ciplan in late 2018. Yet, its earnings and cement sales volumes fell anyway.

Dangote Cement once again suffered at home in Nigeria, while its Pan Africa business grew. Trouble at home was pinned on lower volumes, price discounting, higher input and distribution costs and higher fuel and power costs in the first half of 2019. Of more concern, earnings fell in Pan Africa too in the first half due to market conditions in South Africa and Zambia. As ever though Dangote Cement’s diversity in Sub-Saharan Africa should see it through. Finally, Semen Indonesia continued to ride high as its sales increased by 23% to US$1.17bn due to its absorption of LafargeHolcim’s assets. Unsurprisingly, its sales volumes grew at a similar rate, to just below 13Mt in the first five months of 2019. Yet trouble may be store ahead as its local sales fell by 7% in this period.

Other major producers omitted here include Ireland’s CRH and India’s UltraTech Cement. Both are set to release their results later in August 2019 and will make for essential reading as the market conditions so far in 2019 become clearer. The latter in particular will be worth watching if a report by Indian credit agency CARE Ratings out this week is correct. It has forecast production capacity growth of 120Mt by 2030 in India. UltraTech Cement is perfectly poised to benefit from this.

Greece: Titan Group’s turnover rose by 10% to Euro785m in the first half of 2019 from Euro713m in the same period in 2018. The building materials producer attributed this to improving markets in Greece and Southeastern Europe, as well as continued ‘strong’ performance in the US.

Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) remained stable at Euro122m but its net profit fell by 46% to Euro13.3m from Euro24.8m. In its Eastern Mediterranean region the group described market conditions as ‘challenging’ with falling demand in Egypt and Turkey. In Brazil it said that cement sales volumes were stable but that revenue had risen due to an improving market.