News

Amit Bhatia, chairman of Hope Construction Materials, has been crowned Young Director of the Year for London and the South-East alongside Ross Williams, CEO of Global Personals, at the Institute of Director’s (IoD) Director of the Year awards in the UK.

The London-based businessman, who has a string of entrepreneurial successes to his name, fought off stiff competition from a number of high profile nominees to claim the joint accolade.

The regional awards saw the culmination of hundreds of nominations

The UK’s largest independent aggregates business, Breedon Aggregates, has purchased five new Cat K-Series wheeled loaders from Finning to support its quarrying and aggregate production in northern Scotland.

The latest investment from the company, worth £1.7 million (€1.25 million), also includes a new Cat 336EL hybrid excavator and a Cat 740B articulated dump truck.

Three Cat 972Ks, a Cat 938K and Cat 980K wheeled loaders will help with the production of aggregates including limestone, granite, basa

The French financial markets authority (AMF) has approved the simplified tender offer from Italian cement group Italcementi for French construction materials group Ciments Français.
Currently, Italcementi holds 29,997,248 Ciments Français (CF) shares, representing 84.48% of the capital and 91.38% of the voting rights. The Italian firm is committed to acquiring the remaining 5,510,801 shares in CF that it does not already hold (15.52% of the capital and 8.62% of the voting rights) at a unit price of €79.50.

India's Adhunik Cement has been accused of operating a plant in Jaintia Hills, Meghalaya since 2008 without ever receiving clearance from the Ministry of Forests and Environment, causing significant environmental damage in the process. The Civil Society Women's Organisation (CSWO) has officially reported its concerns over the 1.5million tonnes/year facility, which includes a captive 20mW power plant, stating it has not closed despite a report by a Ministry-appointed scientist made in 2013.
The CSWO has ca

Mexico’s Secretariat for the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) and the Government of Nuevo Leon have highlighted the efforts implemented by Cemex to reduce gas emissions and bolster the use of alternative fuels.
As part of the Mexico Greenhouse Gases Programme (GEI Mexico), Cemex has received the GEI-2 award, with its plants in Guadalajara and Tepeaca granted the GEI-3 award. Gas emissions at the latter have been lowered by around 233,000tonnes, whereas Cemex has cut CO2 emissions at its Guadal

A total of CAD 350 million (€235.36 million) will be invested by Quebec into a limestone deposit to be developed by Canada's McInnis Cement in Port-Daniel-Gascon, Quebec's Economy Minister Jacques Daoust has confirmed.

The commitment by the provincial government for the CAD 1.1 billion plant in the Gaspe region was announced in January 2014 by former Parti Quebecois Premier Pauline Marois and will consist of CAD 100 milloion equity contribution and CAD 250 million lending from Investissement Quebec.

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For the second time in three years, Track Tec of Poland has won a tender to supply concrete sleepers to Tramwaje Warszawskie, the tram company in the capital Warsaw.

The 5,436 pre-stressed concrete sleepers in the current deal are to be entirely supplied in 2014.

Mexican cement company Cemex has revealed that it aims to swap US$55 million (€40 million) worth of Cemex bonds, due to expire in 2015, for 5.5 million American Depositary Shares (ADS). However, it is still unknown when this operation will proceed. Remaining bonds of $320 million will remain in circulation.

Cemex debt expiring in 2015 reached MXN 1.21 billion (€69 million/$93.7 million) at the close of March 2014.

Jamshed Naval Cooper has been named chief operating officer of HeidelbergCement India (HCIL).

Cooper was formerly director (sales and marketing) for the company.

HCIL's holding company, Cementrum of the Netherlands, is aids to be seeking to name Cooper as the company managing director (MD), taking over from outgoing MD and CEO Ashish Guha from 1 July 2014, once the HCIL's board approves the appointment.

Lafarge Wapco, the Nigerian subsidiary of French cement producer Lafarge is planning to raise NGN 100 billion (€446.74 million) by issuing debts or shares in local and overseas markets.

The company will ask for shareholders to approve the fund raising in July 2014. Lafarge earlier announced plans to merge Lafarge Wapco with its South Africa unit to create Lafarge Africa, an entity worth €988 million, and approval of shareholders is needed.

If the merger is successful, Lafarge Wapco's market capitalisa

Italian investment holding Italmobiliare has decreased its stake in Italcementi, the Italian building materials producers, from 60.262%, retained since April 2009, to 44.32%.

The reduction is the effect of the compulsory conversion of Italcementi savings shares into ordinary ones as part of the rationalisation of the group's control chain.

Holcim US has plans to invest US$100 million (€74 million) in a modernisation of its Ada, Oklahoma cement plant.

The company, one of the largest suppliers of portland, blended cements and related mineral components in the United States, submitted an application for a permit to the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality to begin upgrading its sites in Ada between October and December 2014.

The modernisation will increase the plant’s capacity in Ada by about 20%.

Finnish construction and infrastructure company Lemminkäinen has concluded its employer-employee negotiations and is cutting a maximum of 265 man-years in Finland.

The initially announced need for reductions was about 500 man-years, and half of this in Finland.

The company will give notice to some employees, and temporarily lay off some. Also pension arrangements and discontinuation of fixed-term contracts will be used, as well as other voluntary reductions.

The Spanish concrete structures producer Prephor, which manufactures products for the electricity and telecom sectors mainly, is to make 27 redundant at its 54-strong factory in Villamuriel de Cerrato (Palencia).

The plan has been opposed by trade unions which decided not to sign the project.