Global Cement News

South Africa: Chamber of Mines chief executive Bheki Sibiya had been appointed interim executive chairman of PPC. "This interim appointment has been approved by the office-bearers of the Chamber of Mines and is with immediate effect and until 31 December 2014," said a Chamber of Mines statement. The chamber's chief operating officer, Roger Baxter, will serve as acting chief executive until the end of December 2014.

PPC chief executive Ketso Gordhan resigned on 22 September 2014 with immediate effect, Business Day reported. He was appointed in January 2013.

A significant amount of recent news has come from the fallout from the proposed LafargeHolcim merger. Lafarge and Holcim, as well as a raft of global cement producers, are stepping up activity and those outside the deal are starting to jostle for position. They will want to take advantage of the many opportunities to snap something up from the long list of assets to be sold.

First up, Turkey's Sabançi Holding has been reported to be investigating the LafargeHolcim divestments, although the actual targets were not reported. There are none on offer in Turkey itself but potential Sabançi interests could lie in nearby Romania, Serbia or Hungary. Of course, it isn't possible to rule out any wider ambitions.

Next we have Elementia, which has acquired Lafarge's former stake in their Mexican joint venture, prior to the announcement of its initial public offering there. In Singapore, CVC Partners and the Government entered discussions over the purchase of assets. It was earlier agreed by the Singaporean competition authorities that Lafarge and Holcim would be able to merge due to them being relatively small players in that market.

Meanwhile, in the UK and the US, HeidelbergCement is positioning itself via share deals in its subsidiary Hanson Building Products so that it may bid for the LafargeHolcim divestments in the US and UK. Hanson Building Products has filed for an Initial Public Offering in the US in preparation for HeidelbergCement to sell it later in the year. This sounds like a case of HeidelbergCement focusing on its core markets of cement.

There have also been moves by Lafarge and Holcim, most notably their approach this week to the European Union (EU) prior to the merger. The multinationals plan to iron out possible EU concerns over the merged company's market power before filing for approval of the deal, the step that starts an EU review.

Activity seems to be hotting up ahead of the LafargeHolcim merge and it will only intensify. It will be interesting to see which other multinational and regional players decide to 'show their hand' through the rest of the merger process. There are many more assets in Austria, France, Germany, the UK, Canada, Mauritius, the Philippines and Brazil to be divided up before the LafargeHolcim merger can be completed.

Tomorrow (18 September 2014) the residents of Scotland, one of the UK's four 'home nations', will vote in a referendum. The question will be whether or not the country should leave the UK and become fully independent. Rival 'Yes' and 'No' campaigns have spent the best part of two years trying to convince the electorate of the benefits of either leaving or staying in the UK.

Leaving the political discussion to one side, where would a 'Yes' vote leave the Scottish cement industry? The only cement plant in Scotland is the 1Mt/yr Lafarge Tarmac plant at Dunbar, East Lothian, so on the face of it, Scotland's cement industry would be 100% owned by one operator. At this stage, however, it is (hopefully) fair to assume that relations between Scotland and the rest of the UK should be cordial enough to allow normal supply chains and contracts to continue over the border. Lafarge Tarmac, or any future operator, should expect business as (mostly) usual.

However, there are potential issues when it comes to the ongoing UK Competition Commission's (CC) investigation into competition in the UK cement and blast furnace slag markets. The removal of Dunbar from the list of UK cement assets is small but significant. Would the CC come to the same conclusion regardless of the outcome of the Scottish vote? And (how) would any decisions filter into the EU-wide investigations into the LafargeHolcim merger disposals?

Part of the discussion around Scottish independence has been the suggestion that Welsh nationalists might ask for a similar referendum in the event of a Scottish 'Yes.' In our cement plant thought experiment, this has much more of an effect on the current UK situation, with two Welsh plants at Mold, Flintshire and Aberthaw, Roose, which is also a Lafarge Tarmac plant. This would really re-shape the former UK's cement industry and pose new questions for regulators. Elsewhere, Northern Ireland's only cement plant is also a Lafarge Tarmac facility.

Also, a 'Yes' for Scotland has the potential to reverberate around the rest of the European Union (EU). Catalonia, the autonomous region in Spain, has a long-standing and separate identity to the rest of Spain. By contrast to Scotland, its cement industry is massive, with Ciment Català listing eight plants across four operators. If it left Spain, there would be 30 plants in the country instead of 38.

More provocatively, Belgium is a country that, while at the centre of Europe, is often divided at home. French-speaking Wallonia has all five of Belgium's cement plants, but separation between this region and the Dutch-speaking Flemish region would require a number of unlikely changes.

Elsewhere, there are calls to separate the north of Italy from the south, although cement plants are roughly in proportion throughout the country. In France, Brittany also has its fair share of nationalist sentiment. However, any moves here would not trouble the French operators - there are no cement plants in Brittany. Normandy is in the same situation, although a Breton would probably claim that Normandy is 'just part of France.'

The above is only a scratch on the surface. A quick internet search for 'separatist movements in Europe' leads to a large number of hits. The most illustrative of the links is this map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_separatist_movements_in_Europe#mediaviewer/File:Active_separatist_movements_in_the_European_Union.png
It appears that many EU residents would like the map of Europe redrawn.

Looking outside of the EU, the cement industry of Texas has the largest cement industry of all US states. With huge oil reserves, a large and growing population and fast development, Texas' cement industry would thrive in the event of its secession. Discussion of this was particularly strong following the re-election of President Barack Obama in 2012.

Of course, much of the above is hypothetical... or is it? Just two year's ago nobody was talking about Scottish independence. We will find out tomorrow if Europe will get a new (Scottish) cement industry.

India: HeidelbergCement has announced that Bernd Scheifele has tendered his resignation from the position of director of HeidelbergCement India with effect from 10 September 2014. Scheifele remains chairman of HeidlerbergCement's managing board.

Africa: With effect from 1 August 2014, Demelza Mulligan has assumed the management position of Haver Southern Africa. After having completed her Master’s Degree from the Polytechnic University of Münster in Germany, she worked for the Chamber of Industry and Commerce in South Africa.

The business administration specialist joined Haver Southern Africa in 2013 as its marketing manager. Mulligan will succeed Joachim Hoppe, who directed Haver Southern Africa for three years and who laid the foundation for positive future business development for southern Africa. Hoppe is returning to his work at the Oelde-Germany headquarters, where he will found the new business unit of Bergbau / Mining.