Gypsum industry news

Australia: France-based Saint-Gobain has submitted a non-binding indicative offer of US$5.44bn for building materials producer and land banking entity CSR. CSR’s businesses include insulation producer Bradford, fibre cement systems producer Cemintel, wallboard producer Gyprock, autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) block producer Hebel and roofing producer Monier. Together, CSR’s building materials units accounted for 72% of its sales in 2023.

Saudi Arabia: Eight companies have been accepted by the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources to offer bids for an exploration license for gypsum ore at the Al-Qasab wells mining site. The preferential bidders include Saudi National Gypsum, El-Khayyat Gypsum, United Cement Industrial, Global Gypsum Company, United Mining Industries, Mada Gypsum and ASK Gypsum, according to the Arab News newspaper. The proposed site is located south of Nabat in Al Madinah province. The initiative is part of the government’s plans to further develop the country’s mining sector.

Australia: Belgium-based Etex has hired financial services provider JP Morgan to help it buy Knauf’s Australian gypsum wallboard portfolio, valued at around US$293m. The Australian newspaper reports that Saint-Gobain and China National Building Material (CNBM) are also interested in the sale.

Knauf is divesting the assets to satisfy the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s fair play rules following its purchase of Boral’s stake in the USG-Boral gypsum wallboard joint venture for US$1.05bn. The companies have until September 2020 to finalise the transaction.

China: Mainland China's leading cement producer Conch Cement has announced that it is seeking bidders for a gypsum supply contract. The contract will cover the supply of synthetic gypsum produced by flue gas desulphurisation (FGD) between 1 February 2020 and 31 July 2020.

US: USG has said that Knauf has misinterpreted its rejection of US$5.9bn bid following a letter from Knauf to USG shareholders asking them to vote against director nominees. Knauf sent a letter to its fellow shareholders asking them to send a ‘clear message’ to the board of USG to ‘engage in discussions with Knauf’ regarding its offer.

"Knauf's letter mischaracterises our board's actions. Our board has clearly demonstrated that it is willing to evaluate any opportunity to deliver value to all of our shareholders. We have engaged with Knauf in good faith on multiple occasions since November 2017. Jenny Scanlon and I met in person with Alexander Knauf and Manfred Grundke on 12 March 2018. Additionally, at the direction of our board, our financial and legal advisors met with Knauf's advisors as recently as last Thursday. The fact is their proposal is wholly inadequate, opportunistic and does not reflect the intrinsic value of the company," said Steven Leer, USG's non-executive chairman of the board.

Jennifer Scanlon, the president and chief executive officer of USG, added that she had met with and spoken to Knauf's senior management ‘multiple times’ but that it had not indicated any willingness to pay ‘full value’ for the company.

US: USG has rejected a proposal by Germany’s Knauf to buy all of its shares for US$42/share in cash or for around US$5.9bn. Jennifer Scanlon, president and chief executive officer of USG, described the offer as ‘wholly inadequate’ and said that it ‘substantially’ undervalued the company. She added that USG had discussed the proposal on the telephone with Knauf in December 2017 and met in mid-March 2018. Knauf submitted a revised proposal around the same time.

Canada: The directors of the NuGyp Corporation are inviting sealed bids for the purchase of the patents and the intellectual property of the NuGyp process. The NuGyp process is a technique for reducing the water demand of beta plaster. Patents have been granted in 27 countries to date and further applications are pending to cover all major markets in the world. The deadline for the bidding process is 1 August 2016.

The process has been operated at up to 72t/hr in a plant running two plasterboard lines. Another installation is set to come on-stream soon. Two multi-plant companies are also interested in the technology. The technology is developed and ready for commercial use by a company that can provide full calcination technology to the industry.

NuGyp was formed in 2008 by Bob Bruce, Gary Murray and Charlie Blow to develop and commercialise new technologies related to the production of low water demand hemihydrate plaster for use in the gypsum industry. The NuGyp process has patents granted or pending in over 70 countries worldwide and covers all major gypsum producing territories.

Australia: Mining corporation Rio Tinto has blocked a bid by Australian billionaire Len Buckeridge to win control of its gypsum deposits near Carnarvon, Western Australia by announcing it is restarting its ancillary operations at its mine.

Buckeridge, who is worth an estimated US$2.5bn and runs an integrated industrial empire that is one of the biggest homebuilders in Australia, wrote to the State Government in March 2012, demanding that Rio Tinto either restart its operations in Lake MacLeod near Carnarvon or hand over the gypsum rights to him under state agreements, which demand that companies 'use or lose' their deposits. Buckeridge's company supplies about 7% of the subdued Eastern States plasterboard market and more than half of Western Australia's needs, with CSR the other big producer.

Managing director of Rio's Dampier Salt subsidiary, Denise Goldsworthy, said that it had shuttered its Lake MacLeod gypsum operation because it was not financially viable, but booming demand in Asia, and Buckeridge's approach, had caused a rethink.

"Based on the company's projections of medium-term trends for gypsum, primarily in South-East Asia and Australia, Dampier Salt has decided to commence working through the State Government approvals process to resume its own gypsum mining operation targeted at these markets," Goldsworthy said. Dampier Salt gave no deadline for when gypsum would be mined again at the site.

France: Lafarge's Olivier Guilluy has said that the company will not decide on a winning bid for its gypsum unit before September 2011. The business, reportedly valued at around Euro800m, has attracted around 10 serious bids from a variety of established gypsum wallboard producers and new players.

"In principle there will be no decision before the back-to-school season (in September)," said Guilluy. "A price has not yet been set for the division." In June 2010, local press reported that private equity funds, including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Carlyle, were in the running alongside industrial buyers including US-based Eagle Materials.Sources close to the situation have said the gypsum unit may be sold by geographic zone, split into Europe, North America and Asia, depending on whether antitrust rules complicate the sale or not.

Despite the high level of interest, Guilluy added that Lafarge may yet scrap the sale, depending on a decision to be made by its CEO Bruno Lafont. Guilluy said, "The unit generated about 9% of group sales in 2010, with revenue of Euro1.4bn and a current operating profit of Euro58m."