CEMENT MANUFACTURING COMPANIES

The Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers Ltd (APCM) was created in 1900 by the amalgamation of the largest British cement manufacturing companies of the time, the purpose of the company, according to its prospectus, being to unify the entire industry. Although the intent was to "amalgamate all the cement firms in the country", they seem to have been rather dismissive of the industry outside the Thames/Medway area, and concentrated in unifying the large south-eastern companies. As it turned out, not all these were prepared to cooperate and some of the biggest companies backed out when offered too little for their businesses. Nevertheless, the company launch went ahead in July 1900. APCM held in 1900 about 60% of the British cement manufacturing capacity. This sunk to about 35% by 1910, partly because of more rapid expansion by the competition, but also because, as part of its declared strategy, the company closed most of the small, chronically inefficient plants that it had acquired, in order to reduce "overcapacity". During 1911, BPCM was set up as a second combine, the objective again being "a complete amalgamation of the cement trade". This brought together most of the companies that escaped the first merger, as well as several significant new entrants. BPCM was constituted as a wholly-owned subsidiary of APCM in December 1911. Although the two companies maintained separate boards for many years, they acted in concert commercially. The joint brand name of "Blue Circle" was made official in the 1920's, and individual company brands nearly all disappeared. At the same time, the Cement Marketing Company (CMC) was set up as the two combines' common selling organization. APCM, BPCM and CMC were formally called the "Blue Circle Group" in 1956. BPCM was finally merged with APCM in 1965. The Group continued to trade as APCM until 1978, when it was re-named Blue Circle Industries PLC. Blue Circle Industries was bought by Lafarge in 2001, which sold the Hope Cement Works in 2013, now part of the Breedon Group.
Despite Blue Circle's intention to amalgamate cement production in the UK, there are/were a number of other companies. Tunnel Cement, Ketton Cement and Ribblesdale Cement, once Castle Cement, are now owned by Heidelberg Cement. Rugby Cement is owned by Cemex, as is RMC. Hope Cement I have already mentioned.
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