Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC) of Mexico closed May 1 on a $271 million deal for The Hardesty Co. Inc., (dba) Mid-Continent Concrete Co. and Alliance
CP STAFF
Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC) of Mexico closed May 1 on a $271 million deal for The Hardesty Co. Inc., (dba) Mid-Continent Concrete Co. and Alliance Transportation Inc., or MidCo Group. With a 250-mixer fleet and 30 plants, Tulsa-based Mid-Continent is the largest ready mixed producer in northeastern Oklahoma and northwestern Arkansas, and will generate a projected $138 million in 2006 sales. That figure includes raw materials hauling from the Alliance business, which has more than 80 dumps and bulk tankers. Current management will operate MidCo Group as a wholly-owned GCC subsidiary. GCC has also retained in a management capacity MidCo founder Roger Hardesty, who after cutting his teeth as a flatwork laborer in the 1950s amassed a nine-figure portfolio of concrete, trucking, real estate and aviation-service holdings.
The acquisition significantly expands GCC’s footprint in the U.S., reflects an ongoing strategy of investing in growth, and will allow the company to leverage strong demand forecast for the construction market, notes GCC Chief Executive Officer Manuel Milan.
MidCo follows a U.S. concrete platform launch earlier this year, when GCC acquired 14 ready mixed plants from B&B Concrete, Consolidated Ready Mix Inc., Henrich and Sons, and Huron Steel Structures, bringing them under the Consolidated banner. The eastern South Dakota and western Minnesota operations have a 100-mixer fleet and are strategic to GCC Dacotah, a 950,000-ton/year cement mill in Rapid City, S.D. GCC also owns Rio Grande Portland Cement, a 600,000-tpy plant in Tijeras, N.M., and has a 1.1 million tpy cement plant in Pueblo, Colo., on track for a late-2007 opening.
Consolidated and MidCo figure to position GCC as a top 20 player in U.S. ready mixed, with nearly 2 million yards’ annual production. The latter company is the second major Great Plains independent to be tapped by a multinational cement operator in the past six months. Late last year, Lafarge North America acquired Ritchie Corp. in Wichita, Kan.
GCC is the number five cement producer in Mexico and the second Latin American powder operator to create a sizable U.S. ready mixed platform in the past year. Colombia’s Cemento Argos quickly established itself as a top 10 producer by acquiring Texas’ Southern Star Concrete in November and North Carolina’s Ready Mixed Concrete Co. in March.