Displaying items by tag: UK

UK: Breedon Group has acquired concrete block producer Broome Bros., construction firm Minster Surfacing and concrete block and aggregates producer Robinson Quarry Masters. Breedon Group said that the businesses will strengthen its presence around Doncaster in South Yorkshire, in Antrim, Northern Ireland, and 'from the Midlands to London.'

CEO Rob Wood said “Many of our transactions come to us through our local knowledge and personal engagement with the owners. As a result, our active mergers and acquisitions pipeline has continued to yield high quality, earnings-enhancing opportunities that will enable us to progress our sustainable growth strategy." He added "Each of these independent family-run businesses is aligned with our vertically-integrated operating model, providing further opportunity to pull through upstream building materials while extending our downstream footprint to deliver profitable growth.”

Business Live News has reported that the group has also completed its transition to the London Stock Exchange from the AIM exchange. Breedon Group said that this will enhance its corporate profile by helping to attract greater international investment.

UK: Germany-based Heidelberg Materials has signed a deal for the acquisition of Mick George Group, the leading concrete recycling company in the East Midlands and East of England. Mick George Group’s 40 sites span bulk excavation, earthmoving and demolition services and demolition waste removal and management, as well as ready-mix concrete and aggregates distribution.

Heidelberg Materials Western and Southern Europe director Jon Morrish said “With the acquisition of Mick George, we are clearly moving towards establishing a truly circular materials and services offer in our UK business. I warmly welcome all 1000 Mick George employees to Heidelberg Materials and look forward to further developing the business together.”

Heidelberg Materials aims to offer circular alternatives for half of its products by 2050.

UK: Holcim has acquired recycled concrete and aggregates producer Wiltshire Heavy Building Materials. Wiltshire Heavy Building Materials' material recovery system enables it to process 150,000t/yr of construction and demolition waste for recycling. It operates multiple plants across Wiltshire, Berkshire, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, and generated Euro20.6m in sales in 2021.

Switzerland-based Holcim said that the acquisition will expand its UK subsidiary Aggregate Industries' position in the area between London and the West of England, and help the group to achieve its goal of 10Mt/yr-worth of construction and demolition waste recycled globally by 2025.

UK: Denmark-based architecture fund Henrik Frode Obel Foundation has named Seratech as winner of its Obel Award 2022. The award recognises architectural contributions to global development. Seratech has developed an olivine-based composite cement produced using CO₂ from flue emissions, which can sequester double the CO₂ of ordinary Portland cement (OPC). When used as 40% of a blend with OPC, it is able to completely offset the emissions of concrete production.

Team member Barnaby Shanks said "The beauty of the idea is that you can just use it as normal concrete. There are other carbon-neutral materials, but they can be limiting because they can only be precast, cured in a lab in special conditions and shipped elsewhere. We want people to retain the freedom to use concrete the way that they are used to. We don’t want to limit people in any way because we’ll just lessen the amount of impact we can have."

UK: Cemex has bought 10 Volvo 460 8x4 tipper trucks for use at its Angerstein Wharf aggregates depot in Greenwich. From there, the trucks will deliver sand and aggregates all around London. The trucks’ bodies are made of lightweight aluminium, and they conform to Euro 6 emissions standards. This corresponds to 80% NO_x emissions reduction and 50% particulate emissions reduction compared to Euro 5 standards.

Cemex UK fleet engineering manager Nigel Ponton said “The addition of these new trucks to our fleet will enable us to better meet customer demand, safely and efficiently. Safety is the number one focus whenever we add new trucks to our operation and these Volvos tick every box in that respect.” Ponton continued “These trucks will all be working in busy streets across London so it’s imperative we provide our drivers with the best tools possible to do the job and help protect any vulnerable road users. Moreover, thanks to the improved fuel efficiencies and enhanced payload these new Volvos are the most sustainable vehicles we’ve ever had and will help decarbonise our delivery footprint.”

UK: Concrene Limited has obtained a US patent for its Graphene Reinforced Concrete technology. The technology uses graphene dispersed in water to create a uniform distribution of graphene particles in concrete. Graphene increases the strength of concrete, enabling less cement to be used in its production.

Concrene Limited invited interested US stakeholders to discuss opportunities for commercial partnerships.

UK: Oscrete has doubled its laboratory footprint after carrying out an expansion at its concrete laboratory. The upgrade consists of a new wet production area and New Product Development area. The additives producer said that it plans to use the increased space for on-site customer training. The company says that it is now on a ‘recruitment drive’ to develop its concrete technician team.

Technical and development manager Dean Clarke said “Expanding our lab is a key objective following our move into independence at the start of 2022, so we are delighted to now have more capacity, increased product innovation and the resulting need to develop our team. He continued “We are a company committed to delivering and problem solving for our customers, particularly during these exceptionally challenging times of supply chain disruption.”

UK: Breedon Group’s sales revenue grew by 33% to Euro1.48bn in 2021 from Euro1.11bn in 2020. Its statutory earnings before interest and taxation more than doubled to Euro153m from Euro74m. Cement and concrete sales volumes increased by 20% to 2.4Mt and 23% to 3.2Mm3 respectively. The group described 2021 as an ‘exceptional’ year for its cement business due to pent-up demand following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“2021 was a record year for Breedon. We navigated the second year of the pandemic successfully, supplied our customers with more materials than at any point in our history and fully integrated the Cemex assets,” said chief executive officer Rob Wood.