Colombia’s Argos buys US cement companies

Colombian cement company Cemento Argos has bought U.S. concrete makers Southern Star and Concrete Express for a total $257.5m in the biggest ever investment in the United States by a Colombian company.

Argos and subsidiary Cementos del Caribe SA  will buy 100 per cent of Dallas-based Southern Star Concrete for $245m and will pay $12.5m for Concrete Express, based in Savannah, Georgia, Argos President Jose Alberto Velez told reporters.

Argos is part of Colombia’s largest industrial conglomerate, the Grupo Empresarial Antioqueno, and is Latin America’s fifth-largest cement producer.

Including its new acquisitions, Argos estimates its revenues from cement and concrete for 2005 at US$805m, with 58 per cent coming from outside Colombia, Argos said.

Southern Star Concrete, with estimated 2005 revenues of $300m, operates 46 concrete plants and more than 500 mixing trucks and employs 840 people.

Southern Star’s production capacity of 4Mm3 of concrete per year exceeds the total sales of the material in Colombia.