CRH Ciment, the former Lafarge Ciment, is the largest company on the Romanian market of the CRH group (the former Lafarge). The company had 461 employees at the end of 2015.
The company had been run by current Economy minister and deputy prime minister Costin Borc until November 2015. The company is currently run by Mihaela Novac, aged 45, a manager who has been working for nearly 14 years for Lafarge group, which became CRH Romania after the acquisition of Lafarg’s local assets.
In the summer of 2015, Irish building materials manufacturer CRH announced that it had completed the acquisition of Lafarge Romania assets. The transaction was part of a global agreement for the acquisition of some of the assets of Lafarge and Holcim for a total EUR6.5 billion, in the context of the merger of the two groups in France and Switzerland, respectively. Irish firm CRH took over from Lafarge, among others, its two cement factories in Romania, in Medgidia and Hoghiz, and its grinding station in Targu-Jiu.
Following the transaction, the Romanian cement market is still dominated by three large players – the new entity LafargeHolcim, Germany’s HeidelbergCement and Ireland’s CRH. The Romanian cement sector is valued at approximately EUR500-600 million per year.