CEMEX posts highest net income in a decade

643 CEMEX, the Mexican global building materials giant, posted net income of US$806 million in 2017 – its highest in a decade. The company’s net sales increased by 4% year-on-year during the fourth quarter of 2017 to US$3.4 billion, and increased 3% for the full year 2017 to US$13.7 billion. Operating EBITDA decreased by 7% during Q4 2017 to US$625 million, and decreased by 6% for the full year to US$2.6 billion.

CEMEX says its increase in quarterly net sales was due to higher prices of its products, in local currency terms in Mexico, the U.S. and our Europe region, as well as higher volumes in our U.S., Europe and Asia, Middle East & Africa.

Fernando A. Gonzalez, CEMEX chief executive officer, said: “Although 2017 was a challenging year, our two largest markets, Mexico and the United States, performed well with like-to-like increases in their EBITDA. We also generated free cash flow after maintenance capex of close to US$1.3 billion, with a 50% EBITDA-to-free-cash-flow conversion rate and which, together with our asset-divestment initiatives, resulted in pro-forma debt reduction of close to US$2.1 billion during the year.

“We had important headwinds during the year: underperformance in Colombia, Egypt and the Philippines as well as increased energy costs, mainly in Mexico. As we have done in the past, we focused on the variables we control to dampen these headwinds and we continued to deliver solid results.”