History
The company was founded on 5 June 1874 by Johann Philipp Schifferdecker, at Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was making 80,000 tonnes per annum of Portland cement in 1896. It acquired numerous other small companies from 1914 onwards, and by 1936, it was making one million tonnes per annum.
Following the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, the cement industry profited massively from state-run construction and armaments projects, leading to a generally positive view of the policies of the Reich government among workers and management of the company.[5] The company's general director Otto Heuer had joined the NSDAP on 1 May 1933, and was a member of the Freundeskreis Reichsführer SS.[6] During the Second World War, the cement industry was classified as essential to the war effort and initially experienced only minor restrictions in production. As the war progressed, prisoners of war and forced labourers were used in numerous plants; according to the company, the number of people affected is estimated at 1,000.[7]
Activities abroad began with the acquisition of part of Vicat Cement, France. Shipments reached 8.3 million tonnes in 1972. In 1977, a massive program of purchases in North America began with the acquisition of Lehigh Cement. In 1990, expansion in eastern Europe began.
In 1993, it acquired part of SA Cimenteries CBR of Belgium, which already had a major multinational operation. Since then, it has continued to expand, with complete buy out of CBR, and purchases in eastern Europe and Asia. A major step was the acquisition of Scancem in 1999, with operations in Northern Europe as well as Africa. Indocement in Indonesia was included in 2001.
In May 2007, the British company Hanson was acquired, a transaction worth £7.85 billion (US$15.8 billion), which gave the company a stronger market position in the United Kingdom and the United States, and turned HeidelbergCement into the world's leading producer of aggregates.
HeidelbergCement has (2010) 29 cement and grinding plants in Western and Northern Europe, 19 in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, 16 cement plants in North America, and 14 in Africa and the Mediterranean Basin. The company sold Maxit Group and its 35% share in Vicat Cement to help finance its acquisition of Hanson plc in August 2007. In most of the group's European countries, HeidelbergCement is the market leader in the cement business.
Adolf Merckle was a big investor in HeidelbergCement.[8] A capital increase in HeidelbergCement in September 2009, combined with a selling of shares from the Merckle family, opened up for other international owners and higher trading volumes on the stock exchanges. In August 2006, HeidelbergCement AG entered the Indian cement market with the acquisition of Mysore Cement.[9]
In 2013, the cement company CJSC Construction Materials based in the Russian Republic of Bashkortostan was acquired.[10]
On 1 July 2016, HeidelbergCement AG completed the acquisition of a 45% shareholding in Italcementi S.p.A.[11][12] With the acquisition, HeidelbergCement became the number one producer of aggregates, the number two in cement and number three in ready mixed concrete worldwide. The company agreed to sell its assets in the United States for $660 million to Cementos Argos to fulfil anti-trust requirements for the takeover.[13]
The Heidelberg headquarters on Berliner Strasse, built in 1963, were demolished in 2017 and a larger new building was built on the same site by 2020 for around 100 million euros.[14]
Heidelberg has entered new important markets, including France and Italy in Europe, Egypt and Morocco in North Africa and Thailand in Southeast Asia. In Canada, India and Kazakhstan, the takeover further strengthens the existing market presence of HeidelbergCement.[15] The enlarged group is active in around sixty countries, with 60,000 employees working at 3,000 production sites. Heidelberg Materials operates around 130 cement plants with an annual cement capacity of around 170 million tonnes, around 1,300 ready-mixed concrete production sites, and just under 600 aggregates quarries.[15]
On 21 December 2023, the Kakanj cement factory announced the decision to change its name to Heidelberg Materials Cement BiH dd Kakanj.[16]
