Displaying items by tag: corporate

India: The board of directors of Sagar Cements is considering merging its wholly-owned subsidiary Sagar Cement (R) (SCR) into the company. A meeting has been scheduled for the company’s board of directors to consider the matter in late April 2021. SCRL, formerly BMM Cements, operates the 1.0Mt/yr Yadiki Mandalam cement plant in Anantapur district, Andhra Pradesh.

Japan: Sumitomo Osaka Cement plans to set up a ‘Sustainability Promotion Office’ in April 2021 as part of the company’s efforts towards carbon neutrality by 2050. It follows the company’s medium and long-term sustainability targets that were set in December 2020.

India: Aditya Birla subsidiary Grasim Industries has raised US$136m through fully paid unsecured non-convertible debentures (NCDs). The company has allotted the NCDs on a private placement basis.

Mexico: Shareholders of the former Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua have approved a name change at an exceptional general meeting. The company will now trade as GCC.

Chief financial officer Luis Arias said, "We changed the name to GCC to better reflect our 2025 vision: to be the best cement company in North America with the proper balance of people, profit and the planet. It unifies our brand in multiple countries, mirrors the stock ticker and reflects how the market best knows us." He continued, "I wish to thank our shareholders for supporting and approving our new corporate name; we are now an organisation with a new name and renewed vision."

India: The Supreme Court has ruled that depository and clearing agent IL&FS Securities Services (ISSL) release US$52.4m to Dalmia Cement owner Dalmia Bharat. The money was alleged stolen by Allied Financial Services in 2019, according to the Economic Times newspaper. The trial concerning the alleged theft of mutual fund units continues.

Colombia: Cementos Argos will hold the virtual launch of Argos Green Solutions on 17 March 2021. The company will use the group to set out its vision of innovation to build a sustainable future. President Juan Esteban Calle and sustainability vice president María Isabel Echeverri will host the event.

Austria: Weitersdorfer Group has consolidated its lime activities under lime subsidiary Intercal. The group says that the closer cooperation of locations under the regionally-rooted InterCal enables the most effective roll-out of new technology such as drones for stockpile management and supports sustainable production practices such as the use of blown wood dust in lime kilns. Austria-based W&P Kalk became InterCal Austria, Slovenia-based IGM became InterCal Slovenija and Croatia-based InterCal became InterCal Croatia.

Sales and marketing managing director Harald Braunecker said, InterCal's "The new umbrella brand enables future-orientated cooperation between the individual locations, thus strengthening our market position from Austria to the Black Sea. The name InterCal combines the international market claim of the umbrella brand with calcium carbonate, the most important basic raw material for lime production.” He added, "Thanks to cross-border synergy effects among the individual InterCal companies, it is also possible for us to place an even stronger focus on the topic of sustainable production."

Pakistan: Bestway Cement claimed three awards at the Corporate Social Responsibility Awards 2021. The company won the Corporate Social Responsibility in Times of Covid-19 Pandemic award, the Education and Scholarships award and the Green Energy Initiatives award.

It said, “Bestway appreciates its responsibility towards local communities, thus playing a vital role in their socio-economic development such as improving access to health services and education, taking part in the urban development and environmental conservation programs and helping generate employment.

China: China National Building Materials (CNBM) plans to increase its stake in Tianshan Cement to 88% from 46% as part of its restructuring drive. Tianshan Cement will acquire outright fellow CNBM subsidiaries China United Cement and Sinoma Cement. It will also acquire CNBM’s majority stakes in Southwest Cement and South Cement. The group says that it has completed the audit, evaluation and evaluation filing for the reorganisation. It follows an announcement in the summer of 2020 about the plan.

In a related transaction, Tianshan Cement said it had agreed to buy Jiangxi Wannianqing Cement’s 1.3% stake in South Cement. Reuters has reported that value of this deal as US$96.0m.

CNBM said that the restructuring is intended to, “promote the integration of high-quality resources, strengthen the company’s leading position in the cement industry and facilitate resolving industry competition among subsidiaries of the company in the cement business sector.”

Germany: HeidelbergCement has detailed how it uses bonuses to ensure country and cement plant managers achieve their CO₂ reduction targets. Chief financial officer Lorenz Näger explained to financial analysts following the publication of the group’s fourth quarter results for 2020, that a plant’s annual reduction target is calculated against the group-wide ‘525 by 2025’ target of CO₂ emissions of 525kg/t of cementitious material by 2025. Plant performance against this is multiplied with a financial target to determine a manager’s bonus. This enables for the enlargement of bonuses at financially well-performing plants which exceed their emissions reduction targets. A similar mechanism is also used for country managers. Näger called the incentive mechanism a ‘step-changer.’