HeidelbergCement Sees Wienerberger, Boral Interest in Bricks

HeidelbergCement AG (HEI), the world’s third-largest maker of cement and concrete, said Wienerberger AG (WIE), the biggest brick maker, and Boral Ltd. (BLD), Australia’s largest seller of building materials, are among parties interested in buying its brick business.

While selling fringe assets including the brick business and light-weight concrete remains a topic, Chief Executive Officer Bernd Scheifele said he will not do “fire sales” and rather wait until asset prices in the construction industry improve further, according to comments at a press conference today in Heidelberg, where the cement maker reported earnings.

HeidelbergCement’s building materials segment posted 1.17 billion euros in sales last year, a decline of 7.7 percent. About half of that is from bricks, whose sales volumes follow residential building trends, spokesman Andreas Schaller said.

While Wienerberger is “always interested” in bricks, the company is not in talks with HeidelbergCement about the asset, Barbara Braunoeck, a spokeswoman for the Austrian company, said in a telephone interview from Vienna today.

To contact the reporter on this story: Richard Weiss in Frankfurt at rweiss5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Benedikt Kammel at bkammel@bloomberg.net
Source Bloomberg par Richard Weiss