PPC celebrates 100-year JSE listing

| Friday February 26, 2010 00:00

PPC CEO Paul Stuiver said that one of the reasons for the company's longevity was the calibre of its people. 'Not only those in leadership positions, but all of our people in PPC factories, depots and offices, as well as the communities in which we operate.

'Team PPC has built the company and made it the long-term success it is today. Their vision, passion and commitment ensures that PPC remains a market leader. We are looking forward to the next hundred years with confidence, resolve and determination,' he commented.

Established in 1892 with a factory in Pretoria, the company has grown to include operations across the country and in Botswana and Zimbabwe.

A hundred and eighteen years after its inception, PPC Cement has eight manufacturing plants and three milling depots. Together these facilities are capable of producing almost eight-million tons of cement products a year.

Related products include aggregates from the company's Gauteng and Botswana quarries.

Further, PPC Lime is southern Africa's foremost supplier of metallurgical-grade lime, burnt dolomite, limestone and related products. The company's Lime Acres operation in the Northern Cape is one of the largest lime plants in the world.

'PPC has produced cement, aggregates and lime and developed as a distribution company, playing a vital role in the history and overall development of southern Africa. Our longstanding customers and suppliers have been an integral part of PPC's success.

'All our stakeholders have contributed to the company becoming a recognised national brand and a significant ingredient in many of South Africa's monuments and landmarks. We are proud of these associations and relationships, many of which date as far back as the early 1900s.'

Speaking at the group's annual general meeting in January, Stuiver said that for the company to achieve a similar growth rate to that experienced in the past, it would also focus its attention further afield, expanding into other African countries.

'We are fortunate that the countries around us are classified as emerging economies, which is an exciting place to be in terms of the cement industry, when compared with more-developed economies,' he had said at the time.-(Engineeringnews)