Spain: Votorantim Cimentos Spain has completed its acquisition of Heidelberg Materials' businesses in the south of Spain. Under the deal, Votorantim Cimentos Spain gains control of FYM's 1.6Mt/yr Málaga cement plant, as well as three aggregates quarries and 11 ready-mix concrete plants in Andalusia.

Brazil-based Votorantim Cimentos' Europe, Asia and Africa CEO Jorge Wagner said “This acquisition is fully aligned with our strategy, reinforces our presence in the Iberian Peninsula to better serve our customers and creates significant synergies with our existing assets. Besides this, it will be key to accelerating our decarbonisation journey to achieve our 2030 Sustainability Commitments."

Votorantim Cimentos Spain operates a mortar plant and multiple concrete batching and aggregates plants across Andalusia, the Canary Islands, Castile and León, Extremadura and Galicia.

Estonia: Competition authorities have opened additional proceedings into Schwenk Zement subsidiary Schwenk Eesti's deal to acquire a majority stake in Betoonimeister. The parties concluded their agreement in late September 2022.

Betoonimeister supplies ready-mix concrete across Estonia from six batching plants in Jõhvi, Pärnu, Tapa, Tallinn and Tartu. It employs a total of 90 people.

Germany: Ireland-based CRH has agreed to sell its subsidiaries Opterra Zement and Opterra Beton to Thomas Gruppe. Thomas Gruppe expects to complete its acquisition of the businesses later in 2022. Opterra Zement owns the 1.4Mt/yr Karsdorf, Saxony-Anhalt, cement plant and 0.5Mt/yr Sötenich, North Rhine-Westphalia, grinding plant, the latter of which is closed. Opterra Beton operates the Neufahrn, Bavaria, ready-mix concrete batching plant.

Thomas Gruppe said "For years, we have been pursuing a steady and long-term growth course in the field of cement and precast and ready-mix concrete. In the cement segment, our competitive position improved significantly with the purchase of the Erwitte (North Rhine-Westphalia) plant in 2017. Together with the grinding plant in Dorndorf (Thuringia), we have achieved a significantly larger area coverage in Germany, and also in the Netherlands, and benefit from synergy effects." It continued "We would like to continue on this growth course. An opportunity like the one to take over the cement plant in Karsdorf does not come often. The Karsdorf plant, with its gigantic limestone deposits, its market position of well over 1Mt/yr of cement and its experienced team, enables us better to supply our customers, and to leverage improvement potential. In addition, Karsdorf is of sufficient size for us to implement CO₂ separation technology in its production of clinker for the Dorndorf grinding plant." Thomas Gruppe concluded "We are convinced that cement will become a clean building material and believe in its future."

US: The Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) has signed an international partnership agreement with the American Concrete Institute (ACI). Under the agreement, the partners will collaboratively develop and disseminate information on concrete production and its use in construction, with a view to advancing best practices in sustainability.

The ACI said "ACI cooperates closely with our international partners, benefitting everyone in the global concrete community. ACI looks forward to working with the GCCA towards a future where everyone has the knowledge needed to use the latest concrete technologies effectively to meet the demands of a changing world."