Global Cement News

Ireland: CRH recorded total revenues of US$11.1bn in the third quarter of 2025, up by 5% from US$10.5bn in the same period in 2024. Net income rose by 9% year-on-year to US$1.5bn, while adjusted earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased by 10% to US$2.7bn, supported by strong pricing, acquisitions and operational efficiencies.

The group completed nine acquisitions during the quarter with a total value of US$2.5bn.

CEO Jim Mintern said “CRH delivered a strong third quarter performance driven by favourable underlying demand, positive pricing momentum and further contributions from acquisitions.” He added “We are pleased to reaffirm net income and raise our adjusted EBITDA guidance for 2025, representing another record year for CRH. We have completed 27 acquisitions year-to-date, including the acquisition of Eco Material Technologies. Looking ahead to 2026, we expect favourable market dynamics and the continued execution of our strategy to underpin another year of growth and shareholder value creation.”

Greece: Titan Group recorded sales of €684m in the third quarter of 2025, up by 3% year-on-year, supported by growth across all regions. Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 20% to €187m, driven by firm pricing, cost management and operational improvements.

In Greece, sales and EBITDA grew strongly, supported by double-digit volume increases across product lines amid continued construction market expansion. In the US, improved market conditions and favourable weather helped raise cement, ready-mix, aggregates and fly ash volumes, while sustained pricing strength delivered higher sales and EBITDA in dollar terms. Southeast Europe also recorded strong growth, with higher cement volumes and firm pricing reversing the softer performance seen earlier in the year. In the Eastern Mediterranean, Egypt accounted for most of the region’s revenue and profitability following the sale of Adocim in Türkiye in May 2025, posting strong domestic and export sales.

For the first nine months of 2025, Titan’s sales rose by 1% year-on-year to €2.01bn, while EBITDA grew by 8% to €473.6m (+13% when adjusted for the Adocim sale and currency effects). Domestic cement volumes totalled 13.2Mt, up by 2%.

Morocco: Cement deliveries reached 12.3Mt at the end of October 2025, up by 11% from 11.2Mt in the same period of 2024, according to the Ministry of National Territorial Planning, Urban Planning, Housing and Urban Policy. The growth was driven by the performance of members of the Professional Association of Cement Manufacturers (APC), including Asment Temara, Ciments de l’Atlas, Ciments du Maroc, LafargeHolcim Maroc and Novacim. In October 2025, APC members recorded deliveries of 1.5Mt, up 16% year-on-year from 1.3Mt in October 2024.

India: Ramco Industries will build a new fibre cement board plant in Maksi, Madhya Pradesh, with an installed capacity of 58,000t/yr. The project, estimated to cost US$23.8m, will be financed through US$15.2m in term loans and internal accruals, and is expected to be completed within 12 months. The company said the investment aligns with its growth strategy and responds to rising demand for fibre cement boards in the construction industry.

The FLSmidth Cement divestment story took a historic turn this week with the renaming of the company to Fuller Technologies. The sale of the company to private equity firm Pacific Avenue Capital Partners completed on 31 October 2025. Pacific Avenue then publicly rebranded the firm a few days later in early November 2025.

FLSmidth Cement was sold as a complete operating business with all the intellectual property (IP), technology, employees, manufacturing facilities, sales and service organisations included. For more on this read Global Cement Weekly #716. The decision to change the name to Fuller Technologies harks back to the history of FLSmidth and related companies. Pennsylvania-based Fuller Company dates back to the mid-19th Century with the formation of the McKee-Fuller Foundry Company. Fuller Company later emerged in the 1920s when it started selling the Fuller-Kinyon pump, a pneumatic screw pump that simplified the handling of pulverised materials. This product went on to become well known for cement conveying. In 1959 Fuller acquired Traylor Engineering. It was then later acquired by FLSmidth in 1990.

What is interesting here is that Pacific Avenue has chosen to emphasise the US industrial heritage of its acquisition. Looking at the numbers last year offers one answer as to why. Purely in economic terms FLSmidth Cement’s revenue share broke down as follows in 2024: US - 24%; Denmark - 14%; India - 11%; Indonesia - 9%; Brazil - 8%; Türkiye - 7%; and China - 7%. The remainder came from export sales elsewhere.

Both Fuller and FLSmidth are well known brands in the cement sector though. One is American and the other is European. Focusing on the US brand name is a canny move given the increasing dominance of China-based equipment suppliers to the global cement market from the 2010s onwards. One of the few markets that the Chinese equipment suppliers have not made inroads into is the US. Whilst they may have supplied smaller pieces of equipment, major orders have remained the preserve of western companies. Or at least publicly they have. Partly this is because few new lines have been built recently. Yet, the three new clinker production lines in the US in recent years - Heidelberg Materials’ plant in Mitchell, Indiana, National Cement’s plant in Ragland, Alabama and GCC’s plant at Odessa, Texas - had major equipment supplied by either thyssenkrupp or KHD. Both companies are German, although KHD is majority-owned by a Chinese entity.

Western cement multinationals have focused on the US as they have retreated from the east. Key examples of this include CRH’s acquisition of Ash Grove in 2018 and the spin-off of Amrize by Holcim in 2025. Trade protectionism has then crept in under the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 and the more overt tariffs introduced by the Trump administration in 2025. The US cement market is the third largest in the world and the fundamentals for the local construction materials market look good in the medium term. With carbon taxes in the US looking like a distant prospect, it’s a fair bet that more clinker production lines are likely to be required before too long. Protectionism and demand suggest that an equipment supplier to the cement sector with a historically American sounding name and long US-roots might just have an edge. Manufacturing facilities based in the US could also help reduce the cost of tariffs too.

Of course, given that Pacific Avenue is a private equity firm, it may be preparing for a future carve-out or other forms of financial engineering by building up the perceived value of its asset. Or maybe somebody at Pacific Avenue (or elsewhere) simply likes their American industrial history!

Anyway, welcome back to Fuller Technologies and best of luck. And, lest anyone forget, it remains a multinational company with offices in Europe, India, China, Brazil, Thailand, the UAE… and the US.