Buzzi Unicem S.p.A. is an Italian company, quoted on the

Borsa Italiana Borsa Italiana, based in Milan, is the Italian stock exchange. It manages and organises domestic market, regulating procedures for admission and listing of companies and intermediaries and supervising disclosures for listed companies.italy24.ils ...

, which produces

cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mix ...

ready-mix concrete Ready-mix concrete (RMC) is concrete that is manufactured in a batch plant, according to each specific job requirement, then delivered to the job site "ready to use". There are two types with the first being the barrel truck or in–transi ...

, and

construction aggregate Construction aggregate, or simply aggregate, is a broad category of coarse- to medium-grained particulate material used in construction, including sand, gravel, crushed stone, slag, recycled concrete and geosynthetic aggregates. Aggregates ...

s. Its headquarters are in the town of

Casale Monferrato Casale Monferrato () is a town in the Piedmont region of Italy, in the province of Alessandria. It is situated about east of Turin on the right bank of the Po, where the river runs at the foot of the Montferrat hills. Beyond the river lies the v ...

which was once known as the Italian ‘cement capital’. Today it has subsidiaries, interests and operations in Italy,

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

and

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...

as well as in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

. The company was formed in September 1999 when ''Buzzi Cementi'' (founded as Fratelli Buzzi SpA in

Trino Trino ( pms, Trin) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Vercelli in the Italian region Piedmont, located about northeast of Turin and about southwest of Vercelli, at the foot of the Montferrat hills. Trino borders the following mun ...

by the brothers Pietro and Antonio Buzzi in 1907) took over ''Unicem'' (founded as ''Cementi Marchino'' in Casale by Luigi Marchino in 1878), and took on the name ''Buzzi Unicem''. The company was founded by a large family connected to the successful Italian fencer, Lorenzo Buzzi.

Growth through acquisition

In 2004 the group acquired control of the German cement company ''Dyckerhoff'' (founded as ''Portland-Cement-Fabrik Dyckerhoff & Söhne'' in

Amöneburg Amöneburg () is a town in the Marburg-Biedenkopf district in Hesse, Germany. It lies on a mountain and is built around the castle of the same name, ''Burg Amöneburg''. Geography Location Amöneburg lies on a basalt cone that can be seen fr ...

by Wilhelm Gustav Dyckerhoff and his sons in 1864). In March 2018, Buzzi Unicem acquired the German firm ''Portlandzementwerke Seibel & Söhne'' through the ''Dyckerhoff'' subsidiary. In September 2018, Buzzi Unicem revealed that it had acquired 50% of Brazil's ''BCPAR'' (owned by ''Grupo Ricardo Brannand''), which includes two cement plants in the country, with an option to acquire the rest of the firm by 2025. This acquisition was made at a relatively low cost, likely at a loss for the seller, due to the precarious financial situation facing the Brazilian construction industry at the time. In November 2018, Buzzi Unicem was one of thirty companies that formed the

advocacy group Advocacy groups, also known as interest groups, special interest groups, lobbying groups or pressure groups use various forms of advocacy in order to influence public opinion and ultimately policy. They play an important role in the developm ...

Global Cement and Concrete Association The Global Cement and Concrete Association is an international industry association that was established in 2018. as of 2018, it represented about 35% of the global industry for Cement and Concrete. The association was formed, in part, because the ...

'', as a partial replacement for the ''Cement Sustainability Initiative''. the company had sales in, at least, the Czech Republic, Germany (through ''Dyckerhoff''), Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine, and the United States (through ''Buzzi Unicem USA'').

Operations

The current Chairman is Sandro Buzzi; Chief Executives are Pietro Buzzi (Corporate Finance) and Michele Buzzi (Operations management). Buzzi Unicem was among several cement companies who in mid-2018 were fined tens-of-millions of Euros for

cartel A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market. Cartels are usually associations in the same sphere of business, and thus an alliance of rivals. Mos ...

-like behavior in Italy, fines initially imposed in 2017 by the

Italian Competition Authority The Italian Competition Authority ( it, Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato, AGCM) is the competition regulator in Italy. It is an Italian Quango, quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization established on the basis of Law №287 o ...

and subsequently appealed. In September 2017, the company bought a 50% stake in Ecotrade, a supplier of industrial byproducts (e.g.

fly ash Fly ash, flue ash, coal ash, or pulverised fuel ash (in the UK) plurale tantum: coal combustion residuals (CCRs)is a coal combustion product that is composed of the particulates (fine particles of burned fuel) that are driven out of coal-fired ...

slag Slag is a by-product of smelting (pyrometallurgical) ores and used metals. Broadly, it can be classified as ferrous (by-products of processing iron and steel), ferroalloy (by-product of ferroalloy production) or non-ferrous/base metals (by-prod ...

s), with the intent to expand its internal operations. In mid-2017, Buzzi Unicem suffered a

cyberattack A cyberattack is any offensive maneuver that targets computer information systems, computer networks, infrastructures, or personal computer devices. An attacker is a person or process that attempts to access data, functions, or other restricted ...

which disrupted its internal process administration and delayed financial disclosures, thought to be due to the Petya

ransomware Ransomware is a type of malware from cryptovirology that threatens to publish the victim's personal data or permanently block access to it unless a ransom is paid off. While some simple ransomware may lock the system without damaging any files, ...

virus likely infiltrating through plants that it operates in the Ukraine.

References

External links

* *Company listings at aggregators and portals
CemWeek

Yahoo Finance

Markets Insider
Companies listed on the Borsa Italiana Cement companies of Italy Manufacturing companies established in 1999 Casale Monferrato Companies based in Piedmont Italian companies established in 1999 {{italy-company-stub