Gypsum industry news

France: Saint-Gobain recorded €11.4bn in sales in the first quarter of 2024, down by 8% year-on-year compared to first-quarter 2023 levels. Group sales volumes fell by 4.7%, partly due to a 1.5% negative working day effect. Meanwhile, a negative group structure effect reflects on-going optimisation. New acquisitions during the first quarter of 2024 included Australia-based building materials producer and land banking entity CSR.

Saint-Gobain’s sales dropped by 10% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, but grew by 6% in the Americas, where the group noted a ‘dynamic’ renovations market. Its sales also grew, by 4.5%, with ‘strong momentum’ in India. In Saint-Gobain’s High Performance Solutions business, sales declined by 5.4% year-on-year. The business’ sales to construction customers fell by 6.7% amid a decline in new project starts in Europe.

Saint-Gobain forecast resilience in the remainder of 2024, through its focused strategy and proactive commercial and industrial initiatives. It expects new construction to end its decline in Europe and all segments to ‘hold firm’ or recover in the Americas.

Saudi Arabia: National Gypsum Company’s sales amounted to US$13.8m in 2023, down by 5.5% year-on-year from US$14.6m in 2022. Reuters has reported that the company’s cost of sales dropped by 8% year-on-year. Nonetheless, it recorded a net profit of US$1.36m, against a US$1.71m loss in 2022.

China: Beijing New Building Materials’ (BNBM) operating revenue increased by 11% year-on-year to US$3.10bn in 2023 from US$2.79bn in 2022. Its net profit rose by 32% to US$483m from US$367m. Its sales volumes of gypsum wallboard rose by 4% to 2.17Bnm² from 2.09Bnm². This compares to total national sales of 3.21Bnm2. The company is the largest seller of wallboard in China.

The subsidiary of CNBM reported that the country has a wallboard production capacity of 4.95Bnm²/yr, using data from Gypsum Building Materials Branch of the China Building Materials Federation, although 280Mm²/yr of this is classified as ‘backward and uncompetitive.’ It also added that the National Development and Reform Commission proposed in February 2024 that China phase out wallboard production lines with a capacity below 10Mm²/yr as part of the country’s plans to become net zero by 2060.

Belgium: Etex reported sales of €3.81bn in 2023, up by 2.5% from 2022 levels. The company's recurring earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (REBITDA) rose by 10% to €712m. It also raised its capital expenditure for the year, to €371m. Etex says that it was Europe’s leading gypsum recycling performer, with a recycling rate of 8.6% of all gypsum used. The group is ‘actively preparing’ to help rebuild Ukraine as soon as conditions permit.

CEO Bernard Delvaux said “Even more so than 2022, 2023 was a challenging year marked by volatility, uncertainty and severe drops in demand across the world, as we observed the continued impacts of increased energy prices and interest rates. Combined with tougher financing possibilities by banks, all these circumstances meant that both renovation and new construction levels dropped globally. Devaluation of some foreign currencies and hyperinflation accounting also had significant effects on our results. Despite all these challenges, I am extremely proud to share that Etex navigated these difficult waters very well and delivered yet again another record year. This includes our highest ever revenue and REBITDA, among others. This strong performance stems from our anticipation in making strategic decisions and changes at global, regional and local levels, ensuring continued proximity with our customers. This is also a result of even tighter cost monitoring in 2023, without ever losing sight of our long-term ambitions and continuing to improve our strong industrial footprint.”

France: Saint-Gobain’s sales dropped by 6.4% year-on-year to €48bn in 2023. Meanwhile, the group’s earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) dropped by 1.7% year-on-year to €7bn. Despite this, it achieved average organic growth of 6.4% across its markets, buoyed by sustainable solutions, which accounted for 75% of its sales. Throughout the year, Saint-Gobain invested €223m in capital expenditure and research and development, in line with rising internal carbon prices. This contributed to a 34% reduction in its Scope 1 and 2 CO₂ emissions compared to 2017 levels. The company used 57% renewable electricity in 2023, compared to 52% in 2022, and concluded eight new renewable energy supply deals. It aims to reach 66% renewables by 2025.

US: Eagle Materials recorded sales of US$1.78bn in the first nine months of the 2024 financial year. This corresponds to a rise of 6.2% year-on-year from the corresponding period of the 2023 financial year. The producer’s light materials sales fell by 4.6% to US$703m, and its gypsum wallboard sales volumes fell by 4% to 206Mm². The group raised its net earnings by 11% to US$401m.

France: Saint-Gobain says that its like-for-like sales were stable year-on-year during the first nine months of 2023. In real terms its sales were Euro36.5bn during the first nine months of 2023, down by 4.9% year-on-year from the corresponding period in 2022. The group partly attributed this to comparison effects from its previous divestment of assets, including its distribution division, and negative currency exchange effects. Across its businesses, Saint-Gobain’s volumes dropped by 5.9%. Geographically, a ‘resilient’ renovation market offset a slowdown in new construction projects to raise sales in Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa by 1% year-on-year, but failed to do so in Northern Europe, where sales dropped by 5%. Sales fell by 5.5% in Latin America, as Brazil experienced the impacts of macroeconomic difficulties, but rose by 5% in North America. Across the Asia-Pacific region, organic sales growth was 5.1%.

Saint-Gobain said “In a difficult macroeconomic environment, the group continued to outperform its markets thanks to the pertinence of its strategic positioning at the heart of energy and decarbonisation challenges and to the strength of its local organisation by country, which enables it to offer comprehensive solutions to its customers.” It added “The group continues to focus on developing sustainable and innovative solutions with a positive impact, supported by strong innovation and investments for growth.”

US: Eagle Materials sold 139Mm² of gypsum wallboard during the first half of its 2024 financial year (1 April 2023 – 30 September 2023), a decrease of 5% year-on-year from 147Mm² in the same period in the 2023 financial year. This contributed sales worth US$428m, down by 2.9% and corresponding to 35% of total group sales. Overall, group revenue rose by 4.9% to US$1.22bn.

President and chief executive officer Michael Haack said "Market conditions for our construction materials remained resilient during the quarter, even as the Federal Reserve continued to raise interest rates and tighten money supply to contain inflation. Several factors helped offset the higher rates and supported demand for wallboard, including limited housing supply, strong homebuyer demand, increasing infrastructure awards and significant investment in domestic manufacturing facilities.” Haack added “the backlog of housing construction supported resilient wallboard shipments and orders, but we recognise the significant increase in interest rates may have an impact on residential construction activity in the future. Nonetheless, we expect that our portfolio of businesses will remain well-positioned for the second half of fiscal 2024."

Belgium: Etex’s Building Performance division drove revenue in the first half of 2023 through price rises despite a softening in gypsum wallboard sales volumes. The group’s total revenue grew by 4% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis to Euro2.02bn in the first half of 2023 from Euro1.79bn in the same period 2022. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 14% to Euro363m from Euro319m in real terms.

Bernard Delvaux, the chief executive officer of Etex, said “In the first half of 2023, Etex coped with an overall slowdown of the construction sector - both in new build and renovation - triggered by several elements leading to high volatility and uncertainty such as inflation that puts pressure on consumers’ buying power, higher interest rates and more restricted loan policies by banks. However, Etex managed to record improved sales compared to the first half of 2022 through swift adaptations to challenging market contexts and cost-to-price monitoring. While our volumes are slightly impacted, margins remain strong.”

Notable events so far in 2023 include Etex’s acquisition of UK-based Superglass Insulation in June 2023. It divested its two Russia-based units under its Ursa subsidiary in August 2023. It also acquired Betacon, a Romania-based company to secure raw material supply for wallboard activities in the country.

US: GMS’ net sales grew by 4% year-on-year to US$1.41bn in the quarter to 31 July 2023 from US$1.40bn in the same period in 2022. Sales of wallboard increased by 10% to US$571m from US$522m. However, the company’s earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 2% to US$165m from US$169m.

John C. Turner, Jr, president and chief executive officer of GMS, said “We were pleased to deliver a solid start to fiscal 2024 with first quarter results that were in line with our expectations, continuing to demonstrate the resilience of pricing in wallboard, ceilings and complementary products, as well as the strength and stability that our balanced end markets provide.”