Global Cement News

Thailand: Germany-based Schmersal has appointed Passara Hongwisat as the managing director of Schmersal Thailand. She has 18 years of professional experience in sales and channel management for information technology and industrial products and worked in the automation industry for five years. Hongwisat studied Electronic Engineering at King Mongkut's University of Technology North Bangkok.

Schmersal Thailand was founded in Bangkok in 2019 as a subsidiary of the Schmersal Group and focuses on sales and marketing activities to increase the supply of products for machine safety in Thailand.

US: Lindner Recyclingtech America has appointed Brent Moncrief as its National Sales and Corporate Account Manager for the US West Coast and Michelle Wilshire as its new Operations Manager at its headquarters in Statesville, North Carolina. Moncrief will work on consulting with clients on the company’s portfolio of industrial shredding products to large, multi-location waste handling and processing sites while also supporting Lindner’s participation with industry associations and events.

France: Vicat says it offset rising energy costs by raising its prices in 2021. It reported growth in most places as markets recovered from the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. It also noted a particular improvement in Egypt as government-mandated changes came into force in July 2021. The group’s consolidated sales rose by 11.3% year-on-year to Euro3.12bn in 2021 from Euro2.81bn in 2020. Cement and concrete volumes increased by 12.4% to 28.1Mt and 12.5% to 10.5Mm³ respectively. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) grew by 11.1% to Euro619m from Euro557m.

“Conditions in our markets remained dynamic, supported by favourable pricing trends in a context of sustained demand. This offsets the sharp rise in energy costs and wage increases,” said Vicat group chairman Guy Sidos.

Australia: Boral’s earnings in the first half of its financial year have fallen as it has completed the sales of its North American fly ash business. Its revenue from continuing operations fell slightly to US$1.08bn in the six months to 31 December 2021. However, its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for continuing operations dropped by 16% to US$138m from US$164m in the same period in 2020. Cement and concrete sales volumes remained stable and rose slightly respectively.

“With the completion of the divestment of our North American Fly Ash business on 11 February 2022, we have now finalised the strategic realignment of our portfolio to focus on our Australian construction materials business,” said Boral’s chief executive officer Zlatko Todorcevski. “We are focused on building a more competitive and profitable business that is positioned for success and delivers increased returns to shareholders.” He blamed falling earnings on construction shutdowns and growing energy prices despite changes to the business.

Mexico: Cemex says that it will invest a total of US$1.3bn in its business in 2022. US$600m will go towards strategic growth, according to the company.

Chief executive officer Fernando Gondzález said "Overall in 2022, we anticipate a favourable environment with more moderate volume growth in most markets and solid pricing dynamics reflecting high capacity utilisation and input cost iteration. Finally, our objective is to recover margins in line with our goal of operational resilience with our pricing strategy.” He continued "Today, we are very prepared to handle the inflationary change. We have reflected cost pressures in our regular 2022 price announcements scheduled for January and April. We are also assuming that inflation is not transitory and are prepared to respond quickly to changes in the environment."