US: Anne Lloyd has been appointed as a non-executive director of James Hardie. Lloyd previously worked as chief financial officer (CFO) of Martin Marietta Materials for over 12 years from June 2005 until her retirement in August 2017.

She joined Martin Marietta in 1998 as Vice President and Controller and was promoted to Chief Accounting Officer in 1999. She was subsequently appointed Treasurer (2006 - 2013) and promoted to Executive Vice President in 2009. Earlier in her career, Ms Lloyd spent 14 years with Ernst & Young, latterly as a senior manager and client service executive for the natural resources, mining, insurance and healthcare industries.

US: Dorothy M Ables has been appointed to the board of directors of Martin Marietta Materials. With Ables’ appointment, the Martin Marietta board comprises 10 directors, four of whom have joined since 2016. She will serve on Martin Marietta’s Audit Committee.

Ables, aged 60 years, brings financial and operational experience to the Martin Marietta board. Most recently, she served as Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) of Spectra Energy from 2008 until her retirement in early 2017, completing a career of over 30 years at Spectra Energy and its predecessor companies. As CAO, Ables was responsible for information technology, human resources, support services and community relations. Prior to that, she held roles as Vice President of Audit Services and as Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer for Spectra, and as Senior Vice President and chief financial officer (CFO) for Duke Energy Gas Transmission. Ables began her career in the audit department of Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co, a predecessor of KPMG.

Ables currently serves as a member of the board of directors of Cabot Oil & Gas, where she is on the Audit and Compensation Committees. She also sits on the board of Houston Methodist Hospital Foundation. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting.

France: Vicat’s cement sales rose by 1.8% year-on-year to Euro948m in the first nine months of 2018 from Euro932m in the same period in 2017. At constant scope and exchange rates it rose by 10.2%. Overall sales grew by 1.4% to Euro1.95bn from Euro1.92bn. The group’s sales volumes of cement rose by 3.1% to 17.4Mt from 16.9Mt.

“The group achieved healthy increases over the period in all our territories, except Switzerland and Egypt,” said the group’s chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) Guy Sidos. “In the third quarter, business trends held up well, despite a downturn in the economic and industry environment in Turkey, which was hit by the sharp depreciation in its currency. The acquisition of Ciplan in Brazil, a country with tremendous potential, reinforces Vicat’s strategy of sustainable growth, leveraging its high-quality assets and strong regional positions to generate cash flow.”

India: The Industries Department of Himachal Pradesh is planning to re-advertise the tender for a white cement plant project at Sikridhar in the Chamba district. The state government received no bids for the project in the last round of bidding, according to the Tribune newspaper. Only ACC expressed any interest in the process by buying the big papers.

The local government wants the project to be awarded by May 2019 and it is expected to cost around US$138m. The project is a long running scheme that was first suggested in 2002.

Mexico: Cemex says that its digital platform, Cemex Go, has reached over 20,000 customers in 18 countries in the first year of its operation. This figure represents about 60% of Cemex’s total recurring customers worldwide or about 20% of its global sales. The system allows the company and its customers to manage order placement, live tracking of shipments and invoices and payments for the company’s main products, including bagged and bulk cement. Cemex also expects that analytics data from the platform will enable it to make efficiency savings.

Neoris is also helping to commercialise the platform to other heavy building material companies in partnership with IBM. This builds upon Neoris and IBM’s experience helping Cemex develop and launch the digital product.

US: GCP Applied Technologies’ net sales from its Specialty Construction Chemicals division grew by 5.9% year-on-year to US$165m in the third quarter of 2018 from US$156m in the same period in 2017 due to higher volumes in its Concrete and Cement businesses. Overall, the company’s net sales rose by a similar percentage. It manufactures a range of additives for cement production under the Opteva and Tavero brands.

Honduras: President Juan Orlando Hernández has asked local cement producers to offer cement at a discount for use in government projects. The government and the two main producers have formed a commission to determine how to implement the request, according to La Tribuna newspaper. However, Juan Carlos Sikaffy, the head of the Honduran Council of Private Enterprise (COHEP), descirbed the issue as ‘delicate’ given the taxes the cement companies pay and the jobs they create.

Kenya/Tanzania: The administrators of ARM Cement have written off loans worth around US$210m to Maweni Limestone, a subsidiary in Tanzania. The decision by the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) administrators has significantly reduced the cement producer’s assets to US$140m from US$362m, according to the Business Daily newspaper. In a report PWC alleges that ARM Cement had treated its debt to Maweni Limestone as a performing loan, despite the fact that the subsidiary had repeatedly defaulted on it, effectively misleading investors as to the value of the company. The write-off has left ARM Cement’s creditors, including the UK government-backed CDC Group, in negative equity to a value of around US$24m.

Other irregularities that have been discovered amount to US$1.5m. These issues include alleged outstanding director pay, payments to mystery customers and a payment of US$0.4m for ‘fixtures and fittings.’

ARM Cement owns an integrated cement plant at Tanga and a grinding plant in Dar es Salaam that is currently not in operation. It is also building a grinding plant in Tanga that remains unfinished. The cement producer was placed into administration in late August 2018.

Egypt: The shareholders of Helwan Cement have approved the sale of its white cement plant in Minya Governorate to Emmar Industries. Helwan Cement, a 99.5% subsidiary owned by HeidelbergCement and Suez Cement, previously said that the sale was part of its plan to restructure the business and improve its financial position.

Philippines: Holcim Philippines is promoting the use of its blended cement products by local contractors for use in road building on environmental and performance grounds. The initiative follows the government’s ‘Build, Build, Build’ infrastructure program. In July 2018 the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) reported that 3945km of roads had been built by the current administration, with more projects underway until 2022.

Holcim Philippines Senior Vice President for Sales William Sumalinog said that DPWH has allowed the use of blended cement for roads since mid-2016 through Department Order 133, which amends building standards for concrete pavements that previously specified Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC). OPC has a higher clinker factor and so releases more CO₂ during production. He added that blended cement could perform better in some cases compared to OPC as it can be customised to address the specific durability challenges present in sites where structures will be built.

Sumalinog said that, since the issuance of the directive, the company has been working with its business partners and regional DPWH offices to highlight the benefits of blended cement over OPC through its engagement programs such as Holcim Building Bridges.