Global Cement News

Germany: The RKW Group came second in a study into ‘Germany's Most Sought-After Employer 2018’ by the FAZ Institute and the IMWF Institute for Management and Economic Research. The institutes looked at the 5000 largest companies in the country and scored them by quality, performance, success, sustainability, corporate culture and values.

The RKW Group is a family-owned company headquartered in Frankenthal, Germany and a manufacturer of film solutions for hygiene, agricultural and beverage sectors. It also produces packaging for powdery goods. In addition, the company makes films and nonwovens for medical applications, for the chemical and converting industries as well as for the construction sector.

Previously we’ve finished the year by recapping the major news stories from an editorial perspective. If you’re interested in that approach we suggest you read the trends articles in the December 2018 issue of Global Cement Magazine. Here on the website though we’ve decided to run it by readership figures. So, instead of suggesting what we think you should be interested in, we’re flagging up what you are actually stimulated by. Fortunately, unlike the search engines, we don’t run the kind of content to make one lose faith in humanity. Nevertheless though there are some interesting observations to make.

Top 5 country tags on Global Cement website in 2018

5. Egypt
4. Vietnam
3. Pakistan
2. Philippines
1. India

Firstly, as the list of country tags shows the emphasis from readers is very much on developing economies with strong cement industries. India is the second biggest cement producing country in the world and the others are all major manufacturers in their regions. The Philippines is riding an infrastructure boom, Pakistan is a major exporter of cement and has its own infrastructure growth from Chinese investment, Vietnam is another major exporter and Egypt is the largest producer in Africa. Incidentally, Egypt opened a 13Mt/yr cement plant at Beni Suef with six production lines in 2018. These are places where the action is at in the cement industry.

Top 10 news stories on Global Cement website in 2018

10. Big Boss Cement to launch in the Philippines
9. Dalmia Bharat set to buy Kalyanpur Cement
8. Wonder Cement plant launched in Maharashtra
7. LafargeHolcim to sell US$1.7bn of assets after poor first half
6. Birla Corporation confirms plans to build new cement plant at Mukutban
5. ACC in talks to buy remaining cement business from Jaiprakash Associates
4. LafargeHolcim to close Paris headquarters
3. Global Cement & Concrete Association launches
2. ThyssenKrupp to build new cement plant for LafargeHolcim in Morocco
1. Brisk cement trade reported at Ethiopian-Eritrean border

As for the news stories there are several general trends to note. Firstly, the machinations of the Indian producers fill up four of the top ten positions. We’ve noted the size of the industry but it is also worth remembering the common use of English in that country. Secondly, the world’s largest multinational cement producer, LafargeHolcim receives three mentions. Again, no surprise here. We have shades of the company realigning itself after poor financial results and pointing at developing countries. The closure of the former Lafarge headquarters in Paris ties into the former and strikes a nostalgic note following the merger between Lafarge and Holcim in 2015.

From here there’s one story that we included in our roundup for 2018, the formation of the Global Cement & Concrete Association (GCCA). Readers of the BBC News website would have spotted the GCCA’s head Benjamin Sporton popping up in a feature on cement industry carbon emissions. He’s not long been in the job but this is exactly the kind of advocacy the association should be doing on behalf of the industry.

As for the top news story for 2018, it’s not what we’d have chosen in a round-up, but it sums up the importance of cement to people’s lives. It’s a commodity and where people build things they need it. Normalise relations between bordering countries and cement will flow if it can. Now that’s a goodwill story to end the year.

Enjoy the Christmas and New Year break if you have one.

Global Cement Weekly will return on 2 January 2019

Switzerland: LafargeHolcim has added human resources (HR) and legal representation to its executive committee.

Feliciano González Muñoz, head of HR, has been appointed as a member of the executive committee. A Spanish national, he has worked for more than 11 years in senior HR roles with the company. González Muñoz has a PhD in Law from Universidad Complutense de Madrid and holds an MBA from Instituto de Empresa, Madrid.

Keith Carr, head of Legal and Compliance, has been appointed as a member of the executive committee. A UK national, he joined LafargeHolcim in 2017. Prior to this he was General Counsel for GE Power. Before that he was Group General Counsel & Member of the Executive Committee for Alstom. Carr gained his LLB law degree from Northumbria University and is a qualified solicitor in England and Wales.

Additionally, the group’s Corporate Growth and Performance function will be organised into three Centres of Excellence, which will directly report to the Region Heads. This is intended to lead to a more agile organisation, closer to the markets and providing strong global platforms for sharing best-demonstrated practice. Current Corporate Growth and Performance function head Urs Bleisch will lead the reorganisation but he will step down from his current position on the executive position to do so.

All changes will be effective from the start of January 2019.

Poland: Ernest Jelito, the president of Górażdże Cement, has been elected as the chairman of the Polish Cement Association. He succeeds Andrzej Ptak, president of the Ożarów SA Group, who will leave the post following his retirement at the start of 2019.

Jelito was born in 1958. He is a graduate of the AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków. He originally started to work for Górażdże Group in 1982. From 2001 to 2005 he was the general director of the Górażdże Group. Then for the next 11 years he was the technical director of HeidelbergCement. Since 2015 has been the president of the board of Górażdże Group and its general director.

UK: Susie Farnon has been appointed as the chairman of the audit committee at Breedon Group. It will follow the retirement of David Warr at the end of December 2018. Warr has held the post as a non-executive director since 2008 and during his time on the board he served as chairman of the audit committee. Farnon is Breedon's senior independent non-executive director. Following the appointment of Peter Cornell as a non-executive director in October 2018, the group says it is in the final stages of appointing a second additional independent non-executive director and expects to make an announcement early in 2019.