Holcim
The Holcim Ltd.. Lafarge is in front of the largest building material manufacturers in the world with headquarters in Rapperswil -Jona, Switzerland.
The name derives from the former company name Holder Bank (after a location ) or French ciments for cement.
On April 7, 2014, Holcim and Lafarge tellten with striving for a " merger of equals in a stock transaction ." The new synergy -use group LafargeHolcim is headquartered in Switzerland, nearly 140,000 employees and more than 30 billion euros in annual sales have.
History
In the village Holder bank in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland, the company was founded in 1912. The Schmidheiny family since October 2011 has more than 20 % of the shares. Already in the 1920s it expanded to Europe and 1927 to Egypt. After the Second World War holdings in North and South America were added from the 1970s, including those in Asia. Since 1958, the Group is listed. In early 2005 took over Holcim for a total of about 3.5 billion Euro, the British Aggregate Industries and the Indian ACC group. 2005 began a strategic alliance with Cemento de El Salvador, which was acquired in 2010.
Holcim in 2005, 2006 and 2007 Industry Leader of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and has committed itself to reducing the Group's carbon dioxide emissions compared to 1990 by 20 percent by 2010. For the behavior of the newly acquired Indian subsidiary Holcim, however, was nominated for the 2008 Public Eye Awards (see Public Eye on Davos ).
Group structure
Today, Holcim operates on all continents in more than 70 countries.
German Holcim works can be found among others in the near Hanover in Sehnde- Hoever, the work of the former Northern Cement AG (later Alsen AG), in Lägerdorf north of Hamburg, the work of the former Als width Burg GmbH, and since 2004 in Baden -Württemberg Dotternhausen, southwest of Balingen, the work of the previous Rohrbach cement GmbH & Co. KG. The now disused cement factory in Hemmoor the previously listed Hemmoor Cement AG belonged since 1972 to the Holcim Group. In addition, maintains or maintained Holcim a number of mining operations required for construction and building materials industry raw materials, including Schinkel pit chalk pit Saturn and the Höver pit. In since 2008, belonging to the group gravel plant in Rheinzabern is a byproduct gold from secondary deposits of the Rhine ( Rheingold ) at. This work is also the only official gold producer in Germany.
In Switzerland, Holcim now controls about half of the cement market and holds significant shares in the gravel and concrete market. The Switzerland 's oldest work of the group in fountain was closed in June 2008 as to improve energy efficiency and to comply with the new requirements of the Clean Air Act for not more contemporary investment high investment costs would have been incurred. For the remaining 44 employees, a social plan has been worked out in cooperation with trade unions and Syna Unia.
Indicators
- Operating profit: 1.816 billion CHF
- Net income: CHF 1.026 billion
- Cement production capacity: 217 500 000 t
- Paragraph aggregates: 159 700 000 t
- Ready-mix concrete sales: 46.9 million m3
As of December 31, 2012
Foundation
The building materials group in 2003, founded the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction. The Foundation is organizing a global architecture competition on the theme of sustainable construction ( Holcim Awards). Every three years initially awarded three architectural projects in the five regions of the world. Evaluation criteria are sustainability, environmental and aesthetic quality, ethical requirements and cost effectiveness. The 15 winners will then participate in the global finals, the first time took place in April 2006. The prize money is unusually high for the industry, it is per competition round total of 2 million U.S. dollars. Past winners include, inter alia, Christoph Ingenhoven, Diébédo Francis Kéré and realities: united.
In contradiction to this, the group was nominated in 2008 but because of corporate behavior in India for anti Award Public Eye on Davos. The group is accused of in India not to comply with the minimum wage and dubious methods apply to the purchase of land. In addition, the company is accused along with other companies to push up prices for cement in the air.