Spain: Alberto De Luca, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Knauf Spain and Portugal, has been appointed as the president of the gypsum technical and business association (ATEDY). The association represents gypsum and plaster product manufacturers in Spain and Portugal.

De Luca has been the general director of Knauf Spain and Portugal for four years. The Italian national studied in Brussels, Belgium and joined Knauf Group in 2002. He held the postion of general director of Knauf Insulation for Spain, Portugal, Italy and North Africa for over eight years.

US: Eagle Materials has approved a plan to spin off its heavy materials and light materials businesses into two publicly traded entities, bowing to pressure from hedge fund Sachem Head Capital Management.

Sachem, which disclosed a 9% stake in Eagle Materials in March 2019, had earlier urged Eagle to separate its cement and wallboard businesses. After the split, Eagle’s heavy materials business will operate as a cement company, and the light materials business will continue to make gypsum wallboard and recycled paperboard.

“We believe that by pursuing the actions announced today the Eagle board is taking significant steps to unlock the company’s inherent value,” said Sachem Managing Partner Scott Ferguson, also commenting on planned changes to Eagle’s oil and gas proppants businesses.

The separation will be by a tax-free spin-off to Eagle shareholders and is expected to be completed in the first half of 2020. Both the new companies will have their headquarters in Dallas, Texas.

US: Continuus Material Recovery has acquired ReWall, a company that manufactures building products from recycled materials. Continuus uses consumer and industrial paper and plastic waste to produce building material boards for exterior walls and commercial roofs. Its Everboard product uses a plastic and cellulose core.

“With this acquisition we can accelerate waste reduction opportunities through low cost, easily implementable solutions and generate a universal sustainable raw material for a multitude of new products. Design and engineering is underway for an even larger facility where we will be producing hundreds of millions of board feet of building materials, and then we’ll move into other areas,” said Carl Rush, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Continuus Material Recovery.

Vietnam: Yoshino Gypsum Vietnam has started building a US$50m gypsum plant at Phu My in Vietnam’s Ba Ria - Vung Tau Province. Sudo Eisaku, the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Yoshino Gypsum Vietnam, said the project is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Japan’s Yoshino Gypsum, according to the Viet Nam News newspaper. The unit will supply gypsum products to the local construction market. The plant is scheduled to start operation in December 2020.