Martin Marietta, Drake Cement parent pen California plant deal

Sources: Martin Marietta Materials Inc., Raleigh, N.C.; Unacem Corp. S.A.A., Lima

Martin Marietta Materials has entered a definitive agreement to sell its Tehachapi, Calif. cement plant to Unacem Corp., Peru-based parent company of Arizona’s Drake Cement. With a projected closing by year end, the $317 million cash deal will position Unacem with 1.7 million tons of U.S. clinker capacity, about 15 percent of the volume in a cement plant fleet spanning Peru, Chile, and Ecuador. Unacem entered the U.S. in a 2012 deal for Drake Cement and, like its South American sister businesses, has integrated ready mixed concrete production.

The transaction will allow Martin Marietta to close its latest chapter on California cement production assets. The producer inherited the Tehachapi plant, located at the foot of the Central Valley, and a sister Redding operation, near the Oregon border, in a 2021 deal for the Lehigh Hanson West Region, selling the latter property to CalPortland Co. the following year. Martin Marietta and CalPortland abandoned a follow up deal for Tehachapi earlier this year as federal regulator action clouded prospects for a successful, timely closing. In 2015, Martin Marietta sold CalPortland the Oro Grande cement plant, a former Texas Industries property acquired the prior year and located just above the Los Angeles Basin.