The industry entered 2014 with limited tailwind. Last year’s cement shipments and concrete output fell a few points from 2012, and prolonged, catastrophic winter weather hampered construction through the end of March. Before the snow melted, a) good market indicators supporting overdue plant and fleet investment were evident; b) one global and two domestic transactions surfaced, altering the top U.S. and Canadian concrete, cement and aggregate producer ranks; c) ready mixed and manufactured-concrete producers embraced new protocols for the LEED v4 era of green building; and, d) mobile device-suited information technology offerings surfaced, inviting the use of big data analytics to lower concrete production and delivery costs.
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Shareholders, Feds clear Martin Marietta, TXI merger
Sources: Martin Marietta Materials, Raleigh, N.C.; U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division; CP staff
Five months of shareholder guidance and regulatory review appear to have gone according to script for Martin Marietta, which is on track to promptly consummate a merger positioning it as the largest U.S.-based aggregate, cement and ready mixed producer.
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