Lehigh Portland Cement Company

Summary

A merger of US-headquartered Lehigh Portland Cement Company with the North American operations of Cimenteries CBR is proving successful due to sensitivity to cultural issues, proactive leadership of the executive team and a well defined new ways of working based on the principles of total quality and a participative approach to management.

Introduction

With more that 6000 employees Lehigh Portland Cement Company operates 12 plants in North America and more than 200 concrete, aggregates and related construction materials businesses. The Lehigh name has been synonymous with cement production in the US for over 100 years, since it was first established in the limestone-rich Lehigh Valley in the US state of Pennsylvania.

In 1978, Lehigh, a publicly traded US company was acquired by the German company Heidelberger Zement. Lehigh's operations were mainly centred in the north-east, mid-west and south-eastern United States. Cimenteries CBR, SA, a Belgian cement and materials manufacturer acquired its North American assets in 1986. These operations were centred on the west coast of the United States and the western provinces of Canada.

Subsequently, in 1995, the Heidelberger Zement Group acquired control of Cimenteries CBR SA in Belgium which included CBR's North American operations.

At that time it was decided to merge the North American assets of Heidelberger and CBR. The reason for the merger, says Dick Kline, president of Lehigh Portland, was quite simply to consolidate the activities of the two companies, harness the potential managerial and operational synergies and to position the company as a much larger combine in North America.

Interestingly, the organizations decided to combine under the Lehigh Portland name, a decision that met little resistance from the CBR staff because employees from both companies (and these were, at about 3000 people each, of essentially equal strength) recognized that the Lehigh brand was strong in North America and so value could be leveraged from the name.

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