LafargeHolcim

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LafargeHolcim Ltd.

logo
legal form Corporation
ISIN CH0012214059
founding 1912/2001 ( Holding )
Seat Rapperswil-Jona , SwitzerlandSwitzerlandSwitzerland 
management Jan Jenisch
(Chairman of the Management Board )
Beat Hess
( Chairman of the Board of Directors )
Number of employees 72,452
sales CHF 26.7 billion
Branch Building materials
Website www.lafargeholcim.com
As of December 31, 2017

Holcim plant in Dotternhausen (2019)
Lafarge brand logo
Holcim brand logo

The LafargeHolcim Ltd. with the brands Holcim and Lafarge is one of the largest manufacturers of building materials in the world and has its headquarters in Rapperswil-Jona in Switzerland .

The name Holcim is derived from the former company name Holderbank (after the place of the same name ) and from the French ciments for cement.

On April 7, 2014, Holcim and Lafarge announced that they were aiming for a “merger of equals through a share swap”. The LafargeHolcim group, which uses synergies, is to have its headquarters in Switzerland, almost 140,000 employees and annual sales of over 30 billion euros. The merger of the two companies began on July 14, 2015 with the renaming of Holcim Ltd. in LafargeHolcim Ltd. and the additional listing of the shares on Euronext Paris .

history

The company was founded in 1912 as the Aargau Portland Cement Factory Holderbank-Wildegg in the village of Holderbank in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland . In the 1920s - already known under the company name Holderbank or Holderbank Cement und Beton (HCB) - it expanded to Europe and in 1927 to Egypt. After the Second World War, investments were made in North and South America, and from the 1970s also in Asia. The group has been listed on the stock exchange since 1958. At the beginning of 2005, Holcim took over the British Aggregate Industries and the Indian ACC Group for a total of around 3.5 billion euros . In 2005 a strategic alliance began with Cemento de El Salvador , which was taken over in 2010. The Schmidheiny family dynasty has owned more than 20% of the shares since October 2011 .

Holcim was the Leader of Industry in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index in 2005, 2006 and 2007 and has committed itself to reducing Group-wide carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent compared to 1990 levels by 2010. For the behavior of the newly acquired Indian subsidiary, however, Holcim was nominated for the Public Eye Awards in 2008 (see Public Eye on Davos ). At the time, the company was accused of failing to adhere to minimum wages in India, of using dubious methods of buying land and of driving up cement prices.

In 2016 there were first reports that Lafarge had paid protection money to the Islamic State (IS) before the merger with Holcim in 2013 and 2014 in order to protect a cement plant in Syria from the closure and eventual capture of IS. The plant was closed in September 2014 and the employees evacuated. After an internal investigation into what was happening in Syria, LafargeHolcim admitted in March 2017 that funds had flowed to “third parties” in Syria in order to be able to maintain operations and to guarantee employees safe access to the plant. However, the recipients of the funds can no longer be precisely determined. It was also stated that the measures taken were "unacceptable". In connection with the Syria affair, LafargeHolcim announced in April 2017 that Eric Olsen ( CEO ) would leave the company in July of that year. In May it was also announced that Jan Jenisch , previously CEO of Sika AG , would take over the position of CEO on October 16, 2017.

Shareholders

Group structure

Before the merger with Lafarge, Holcim was already active in more than 70 countries around the world.

German Holcim plants are located near Hanover in Sehnde- Höver , the plant of the former Nordcement AG (later Alsen AG ), in Lägerdorf north of Hamburg, the plant of the former Alsen-Breitenburg GmbH, and since 2004 in Baden -Wuerttemberg Dotternhausen , southwest of Balingen , the factory of the former Rohrbach Zement GmbH & Co. KG. The cement factory in Hemmoor of the previously listed Hemmoor Zement AG , which has now been closed , has also been part of the Holcim Group since 1972. In addition, Holcim maintains or has maintained a number of mining operations for raw materials required by the construction and building materials industry, including the Schinkel Pit , the Saturn Chalk Pit and the Höver Pit . In the gravel works in Rheinzabern , which has been part of the group since 2008, gold is produced as a by-product from secondary deposits of the Rhine ( Rheingold ). This plant is also the only official gold producer in Germany.

In Switzerland, Holcim now controls more than half of the cement market and holds significant shares in the gravel and concrete market. The Group's oldest plant in Brunnen in Switzerland was closed in June 2008, as high investment costs would have been incurred in order to improve energy efficiency and comply with the new requirements of the Clean Air Ordinance. A social plan was drawn up for the remaining 44 employees in cooperation with the Syna and Unia unions .

Key figures

  • Recurring EBITDA: CHF 6.153 billion
  • Net profit: CHF 2.072 billion
  • Impairment / depreciation: CHF 3.501 billion
  • Cement production capacity: 318.4 million t
  • Sales of aggregates : 278.7 million t
  • Sales of ready-mixed concrete : 50.6 million m 3

As of December 31, 2017

Foundation, endowment

The building materials group founded the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction in 2003 , which was renamed the LafargeHolcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction in October 2015 . The foundation organizes a global architecture competition on the topic of sustainable building ( Holcim Awards ). Every three years, three architecture projects are initially awarded in each of the five world regions. Assessment criteria are sustainability, ecological and aesthetic quality, ethical requirements and economic efficiency. The 15 winners will then take part in the global final, which first took place in April 2006. The prize money is unusually high for the industry, totaling US $ 2 million per competition round. The winners include Christoph Ingenhoven , Diébédo Francis Kéré and realities: united .

Startup and digitization initiative

At the end of 2018 / beginning of 2019, the company launched the "Plants of Tomorrow" initiative to use automation technology and robotics , artificial intelligence , predictive maintenance and digital twin technologies ("Digital Twins") throughout the production process of its 270 plants. LafargeHolcim expects a permanent operational efficiency increase of 15 to 20 percent. As part of the digitization efforts, LafargeHolcim founded the "LH Maqer" platform as a digital and startup accelerator. Among other things, LH Maqer should offer startups access to the building materials sector in order to promote innovations on a large scale together with the group. Industry-specific segments such as the "LH Manufacturing Maqer" were founded under the LH Maqer brand.

criticism

Holcim is accused of illegally using a gravel quarry in the municipality of Schalkholz in Schleswig-Holstein as a landfill . There are construction debris , Teerbrocken and plastics have been buried. Holcim had planned to use the gravel pit accordingly, but had not applied for a permit. In 2015, Holcim announced to the NDR magazine Panorama 3 that it would examine the processes and remove any “foreign materials”.

For Wilkenburg near Hanover, the company submitted an application for gravel mining in the Obere Leine landscape protection area in 2014 , which it has been holding on to in the planned mining area since the discovery of the Roman marshes of Wilkenburg in 2015. The dismantling would destroy the archaeological remains of the camp. Archaeologists from the Lower Saxony State Office for Monument Preservation would like to preserve the site as a research reserve for future improved investigation methods.

Holcim is accused of poisoning a village in southwest Nigeria with fine dust. Doctors report that people have liver, lungs, and spleen damage. A petition demands: "The company must finally ensure that the people in Ewekoro are no longer poisoned with fine dust."

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Internet excerpt: CHE-100.136.893. (No longer available online.) Commercial Register of the Canton of St. Gallen, June 4, 2012, formerly the original ; accessed on January 14, 2014 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / sg.powernet.ch  
  2. ↑ Networked: The LafargeHolcim president maintains this power network , article about Hess from May 11, 2016 in the journal Bilanz .
  3. ↑ Integrated Annual Reporting 2019
  4. ^ Record net income and free cash flow
  5. ↑ Cement giants Holcim and Lafarge merge. ORF.at from April 7, 2014
  6. ↑ Merger to form LafargeHolcim, the most progressive group in the building materials industry. Media release of April 7, 2014 (PDF)
  7. ↑ Lafarge-Holcim celebrates. In: nzz.ch. July 15, 2015, accessed October 14, 2018 .
  8. ↑ Brief Zementgeschichte, Holcim AG ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. dated March 24, 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.holcim.ch
  9. ↑ Schmidheiny buys Holcim shares again. In: 20 minutes , October 6, 2011.
  10. ↑ Public Eye Swiss Award (PDF file; 104 kB)
  11. ↑ http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/wirtschaft/standard/Lafarge-machte-angeblich-Geschaefte-mit-dem-IS/story/25374933
  12. ↑ http://www.n-tv.de/wirtschaft/Lafarge-zahlte-Schutzgeld-in-Syrien-article19726964.html
  13. ↑ http://www.lafargeholcim.com/sites/lafargeholcim.com/files/atoms/files/03022017-press-lafargeholcim-syria-de.pdf
  14. ↑ http://www.lafargeholcim.com/sites/lafargeholcim.com/files/atoms/files/04242017-press-lafargeholcim-ceo-departure-de.pdf
  15. ↑ http://www.lafargeholcim.com/new-ceo-jan-jenisch
  16. ↑ http://www.lafargeholcim.com/major-shareholders
  17. ↑ 150 years of cement production in Lägerdorf
  18. ↑ Holcim Kies und Beton GmbH acquires new gravel works and a dry sand works ( Memento from June 28, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). Press release Holcim South. April 1, 2008, accessed August 23, 2012.
  19. ↑ Christoph Seidler: Treasure hunters raise the Rhine gold . Spiegel Online, 23 August 2012. Retrieved the same day.
  20. ↑ Press release from Holcim (Schweiz) AG ( Memento of the original dated December 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , January 16, 2008 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.holcim.ch
  21. ↑ Joint media release by the Syna, Unia and Holcim (Schweiz) AG unions ( Memento of the original dated December 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , February 15, 2008. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.holcim.ch
  22. ↑ Holcim Ltd .: Annual Report 2013 (PDF) Retrieved April 30, 2014 .
  23. ^ LafargeHolcim: "Plants of Tomorrow" Industry 4.0 for cement production. In: https://www.lafargeholcim.com . LafargeHolcim, accessed July 18, 2019 .
  24. ↑ LafargeHolcim: Industry 4.0 for cement production: LafargeHolcim launches the "Plants of Tomorrow". In: https://www.lafargeholcim.com . LafargeHolcim, July 9, 2019, accessed on July 17, 2019 (German).
  25. ↑ Jörg Hilbert: On the trail of a garbage scandal. In: NDR.de. February 10, 2015, accessed February 11, 2015 .
  26. ↑ Holcim is still interested in gravel mining in: Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung of August 21, 2017.
  27. ^ Roman camp: Region wants to approve gravel mining at ndr.de on February 2, 2017
  28. ^ Petition LafargeHolcim. In: Group Initiative. Retrieved on July 12, 2020 (German).