Sources: Martin Marietta Materials Inc., Raleigh, N.C.; CP staff
In an upbeat, company-wide memo, Martin Marietta CEO Ward Nye underscores positive market, investor and employee response to the Texas Industries merger announcement three weeks prior, noting that “all remains on schedule for a targeted closing sometime this summer.”
Read MoreSources: Lafarge Group, Paris; Bluegrass Materials, Jacksonville, Fla.; CP staff
Lafarge North America’s pull back from key U.S. positions continues with the planned sale of Baltimore and western Maryland aggregates businesses to a four-year-old company backed by members of Florida Rock Industries’ founding family.
Read MoreSources: Headwaters Inc., South Jordan, Utah; Lincoln Intl., Chicago; CP staff
Headwaters has closed on separate transactions involving an 80 percent equity interest in Okeechobee, Fla.-based Roof Tile Inc., which produces and markets Entegra brand concrete lines in Florida and Caribbean markets, plus a 40 percent stake in a related joint venture behind Tag & Stick, a roofing underlayment product.
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Computer chip manufacturer Global Foundries began building its Fab 8 project in Saratoga County, N.Y., in 2009—the $4 billion-plus project representing the largest private capital investment in the U.S. against the prior year’s financial markets distress.
Read MoreSources: Freedonia Group, Cleveland; CP staff
With the tailwind of a home building rebound from low 2012 base levels, U.S. demand for landscaping products is projected to grow 6.9 percent per year through 2017, to $6.5 billion—a welcome projection for producers and suppliers who have seen a slow recovery from the 2007-2009 recession.
Read MoreSources: Summit Materials, Washington, D.C.; CP staff
Ending a one-year drought of announced concrete and aggregate deals, Summit Materials has acquired Utah’s Westroc Inc. and certain Lafarge North America assets in Kansas.
Read MoreSources: CP staff; Bluegrass Materials Co., Jacksonville, Fla.; Vulcan Materials Co., Birmingham, Ala.
Lafarge North America’s sale of its Georgia quarries-four to Bluegrass Materials, two to Vulcan Materials-marks a retreat from the Southeast and Blue Circle America assets parent company Lafarge Group placed under its control the past 12 years.
Read MoreSources: Eagle Materials Inc., Dallas; Lafarge Group, Paris; CP staff
By Don Marsh
Eagle Materials is projecting a November or December closing on Lafarge North America properties in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma: eight ready mixed concrete plants, two aggregate quarries plus a fly ash distribution business strategic to Kansas City; Sugar Creek, Mo., and Tulsa, Okla., cement mills; and six cement terminals in the four states. In the 12 months leading up to June 30, 2012, the operations logged $178 million in revenue.
Read MoreSource: Grace Construction Products, Cambridge, Mass. Effective January, Grace will implement price increases averaging 5 percent across North American concrete and masonry product lines. Pricing for certain products may increase by more than 10 percent. The company attributes the bumps to continued demand for chemical streams globally, which has put pressure on the cost and availability of raw materials used…
Read MoreSource: Wieser Concrete Products Inc., Maiden Rock, Wis. Wieser Concrete recently opened a 32,000-sq.-ft. precast plant in Roxana, Ill., 35 miles northeast of St. Louis. Like its four sister operations, the National Precast Concrete Association-certified plant is producing a full range of structures and components for agriculture, commercial, highway and underground applications. Andrew Wieser has been named general manager at…
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