Gypsum industry news

US: Saint-Gobain has appointed Mark Rayfield as the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of its subsidiary CertainTeed. He will also serve as the Region CEO of Saint-Gobain Construction Products for North America.

Rayfield has worked as the CEO of Saint-Gobain Building Distribution United Kingdom and Ireland since 2013. He started his career with Saint-Gobain in 1999 in a sales role within Abrasives North America, before assuming the role of Vice President of Saint-Gobain Abrasives North America from 2007 to 2011. Prior to moving to the UK, Rayfield was President of the CertainTeed Siding business from 2011 - 2013.

He succeeds Benoit Bazin, who has served as president and CEO of CertainTeed since January 2017. Bazin will continue to serve as president and CEO, Saint-Gobain’s Construction Products Sector and Senior Vice President, Saint-Gobain Corporation.

France: Saint-Gobain has grown its sales in the first half of 2017 despite a reported Euro220m impact from a cyber attack in June 2017. The building materials producer's sales rose by 4.4% year-on-year to Euro20.4bn in the first half of 2017 from Euro19.5bn in the same period in 2016. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 5.8% to Euro2.07bn from Euro1.96bn. It attributed the sales growth to rising prices, increased sales volumes and positive currency exchange rates.

"The first half of 2017 confirmed the encouraging trends seen in 2016, particularly in France. Excluding the one-off impact of the cyber-attack, the group grew at its fastest rate since the first half of 2011 translating into double-digit growth in operating income. The focus on sales prices paid off, allowing us to offset the rise in raw material and energy costs at group level. Overall, the results were in line with our expectations, and we can therefore confirm with confidence our 2017 objectives," said Pierre-André de Chalendar, the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Saint-Gobain.

By business line the group's Interior Solutions division of its Construction Products (CP) business reported an organic growth of 4.1% in the first half of the year, along with both rising sales volumes and prices, despite rising raw material and energy costs. Trading in Western Europe and in Asia and emerging countries improved in terms of both volumes and prices, with prices continuing to rise during the second quarter. North America also advanced, with a slight acceleration in prices since the first quarter.

With respect the cyber attack the group said that the full year impact of the incident upon sales is expected to be under Euro250m. Just over half the impact of the attack affected its Building Distribution business and the rest affected its CP unit. Geographically, the worst affected areas were in Western Europe, especially in Scandinavia, Germany and France.

Germany: Rigips has inaugurated its first gypsum recycling plant at Gelsenkirchen in North Rhine-Westphalia. The subsidiary of Saint-Gobain will recycle gypsum with New West Gypsum Recycling Germany. Waste material from buildings from the Rhine-Ruhr region and the northern part of Rhineland-Palatinate will be sent to a reprocessing site operated by New West Gypsum first before being despatched to the Rigips plant where it will be returned to the production process. Rigips intends to open more gypsum recycling plants following the start-up process of its new unit.

"With the start of the plant, Rigips assumes a pioneering role for the entire drywall construction industry. As the first manufacturer, we in North Rhine-Westphalia are now able to implement the idea 'from gypsum to gypsum'. Thus we cover the complete product service life cycle, from the raw material extraction via the production and installation to the demolition and the recycling," said Werner Hansmann, chairman of the management at Rigips.

France: Saint-Gobain says that a cyber attack that hit its operations in late June 2017 is unlikely to negatively affect its first-half financial results by more than 1%. It is still investigating the impact of the incident and will report more fully in its results on 27 July 2017.

The building materials producer added that it had restored its remaining operations still 'experiencing difficulties' back to normal. It said that since early July 2017 the 'vast majority' of its businesses had been operating normally and that no personal data was disclosed to any third party. It does not expect the event to have any future commercial impact.

India: Gyproc India is preparing to open a 30Mm² gypsum wallboard plant in Gujarat by the end of August 2017. The US$62m plant has taken about two years to build, according to the Hindu newspaper. The subsidiary of France's Saint-Gobain currently operates three wallboard plants at Haryana, Maharashtra and Karnataka with a total production capacity of 55Mm².

France: Saint-Gobain has been hit by a cyberattack. The building materials producer said that it subsequently isolated its systems in order to protect its data. It added that its production lines were continuing to operate and that it was still serving its clients. It is not known whether the company has been infected with the Petya ransonware virus. However, the company operates a gypsum wallboard plant in Ukraine, where that attack was first reported on 27 June 2017.

UK: British Gypsum has completed a Euro7.4m upgrade of its Barrow-Upon-Soar gypsum mine. The investment is expected to secure supplies of gypsum to produce gypsum wallboard for 20 years at the company's production sites at East Leake in Nottinghamshire and Fauld in Staffordshire, and at British Gypsum's sister business Saint-Gobain Formula based at Newark, according to the Loughborough Echo. The upgrade will allow the mine to be expanded using conveyors, fans and other mining equipment.

India: The government has extended an anti-dumping duty on imports of gypsum wallboard from China, Indonesia, Thailand and the UAE to protect local producers. Saint-Gobain India asked for an extension of the duty on the imports of the boards from these four countries, according to the Press Trust of India. The tariff was originally implemented in 2013 at US$73.8/m² to run until 7 June 2017. It has now been extended to 6 June 2018.

France: Saint-Gobain has adjusted the representation of Wendel on its board of directors after a sale of the investment company's shares in the construction materials producer. Following the sale of 5.3% of Saint-Gobain's shares Wendell retains one sole director, Frédéric Lemoine, and a 6.4% stake. However, Saint-Gobain has decided to retain Wendel's other representative, Gilles Schnepp, as an independent director due to his experience of the group.

France: Julie Bonamy has been appointed as the Vice-President, Corporate Strategy and Planning at Saint-Gobain with effect from 1 June 2017. She will replace Delphine Geny-Stephann, who has been appointed as the Vice President and General Manager Silicon Carbide & Quartz within the Innovative Materials sector. Bonamy will report to Guillaume Texier and she is a member of the Senior Management Committee.

Bonamy is a graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Studies (IEP de Paris) and the National School of Public Administration (Ecole Nationale d'Administration). She started her career as a civil servant (inspectrice des finances) for the French government in 2011, before joining the Office of the French Minister for the Economy, Industry and the Digital Sector in October 2014. She was appointed advisor for the budget and digital sector in July 2015.