Global Cement News

China: The board of directors of Jiangxi Wannianqing Cement has elected Lin Rong as its chairman. The 48-year old economist has previously worked for Xingang Group as well as Xinyu Iron and Steel Group.

France: Hoffmann Green Cement Technologies has appointed François de Gliniasty as Technical and Commercial Promoter for the Ile-de-France region. The 45-year old holds over 25 years of experience in sales, marketing and logistics. He began his career at Lapeyre, part of Saint-Gobain Group, in sales and was then Logistics Manager from 2000 to 2005. He was then appointed as the Lapeyre Group’s Organizations Manager for the Rhône-Alpes and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur regions of southeast France. Since 2008, he has been in charge of sales development for the Paris region at WEDI France.

India: UltraTech Cement’s sales have been negatively affected by coronavirus-related lockdowns in the fourth quarter of its financial year. Its net sales fell by 13% year-on-year to US$1.40bn in the quarter to 31 March 2020 from US$1.61bn in the same period in 2019. The cement producer was forced to shut down certain plants in March 2020, usually one of the busiest months of the year. Plants started to reopen in late April 2020.

The cement producer’s annual net sales rose slightly to US$5.48bn in the financial year to 31 March 2020. Its profit before interest, depreciation and tax (PBIDT) grew by 27% year-on-year to US$1.31bn from US$1.03bn. It also reported that it reduced its net debt and earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) ratio to 1.7 from 2.83.

Tanzania: Huaxin Cement has announced the completion of its acquisition of Kenya-based Athi River Mining (ARM) Cement’s Tanzanian subsidiary Maweni Limestone. Reuters has reported that Huaxin Cement will invest US$30m in completing upgrades to the company’s plants in addition to an investment of US$116m to settle Maweni Limestone’s debts.

Nigeria: Lafarge Africa says it is preparing for reduced revenue in the second quarter of 2020 due to subdued activity in the construction sector caused by lockdown measures related to the coronavirus outbreak. Its revenue grew by 10% year-on-year to US$164m in the first quarter of 2020 from US$149m in the same period in 2019. Its profit after tax more than doubled to US$20.8m. First quarter sales were driven by growing cement sales that compensated for slowing aggregate and concrete sales. Managing director Khaled El Dokani said that despite, short-term disruptions due to the epidemic, the subsidiary of LafargeHolcim was confident of the resilience of its business.