Nearly one year after Cemex purchased Rinker Materials, local Rinker operations are completing the switch to the Cemex brand.
Mexico-based Cemex bought Rinker Materials for $15.3 billion in July 2007, according to Cemex. Rinker is an Australia-based manufacturer of crushed stone, cement, concrete and asphalt with eight Vancouver area sites and 150 local employees.
The Cemex brand was added to Rinker’s main Vancouver building in April and is appearing on more Rinker trucks and printed materials. The transition has been slow because Cemex considered selling Rinker’s Northwest operations until December 2007, said Chuck Rose, a company aggregates manager in Vancouver.
Local management and operations will not change, but the acquisition is a sign of a changing industry, Rose said.
“If you were a Rinker shareholder, (the acquisition) was a good deal for you,” he said. “If you wanted to be with Rinker for your whole career, you may not have had such a warm fuzzy feeling. The whole industry is consolidating.”
Cemex bought Rinker and its 3.6 billion pounds of aggregate reserves to increase its international presence, particularly in the southern and western United States.
Cemex was established in 1906 in Mexico as Cementos Hidalgo. The company gained a major presence in the U.S. in 2000, and its U.S. operations are headquartered in Houston. It is publicly owned in Mexico and the U.S. with 67 production plants in 50 countries and a global cement production capacity of 96.7 million metric tons. Cemex has made at least 14 significant acquisitions since the late 1980s.
—Charity Thompson
