This week, thomas gruppe signed a purchase agreement with CRH/OPTERRA Germany under which thomas gruppe will buy OPTERRA Zement GmbH and OPTERRA Beton GmbH. This includes the Karsdorf plant, the decommissioned Sötenich plant, and the Neufahrn ready-mix concrete plant. The purchase will effectively be completed by the end of 2022.

For years, we have been pursuing a steady, long-term growth course in the cement, concrete components and ready-mix concrete segments.

In the cement business, the purchase of the Erwitte plant in 2017 significantly improved our competitive position. Together with the plant in Dorndorf, we have achieved significantly greater coverage in Germany and also in the Netherlands and are benefiting from synergy effects.

We would like to continue this growth course. You don’t often get an opportunity like taking over the cement plant in Karsdorf in your life. Karsdorf, with its gigantic rock deposits, its market position of well over 1 million tons of cement and its experienced team, enables us to better supply our customers and leverage improvement potential. In addition, Karsdorf has sufficient scale to introduce a technology in the long term with the Dorndorf clinker requirement that will capture the CO2 produced in the cement production process in an ecologically and economically viable size. We are convinced that cement will become a clean building material and believe in its future.

We look forward to the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

OPTERRA Werk Karsdorf

Quelle: OPTERRA

In October, parts of the thomas gruppe were outsourced to thomas next.

For years, Mr. Thomas has been dealing with the question of how the thomas group can be optimally prepared for the upcoming generation change and the future. In the meantime, the group has reached a size and strength that make it a special challenge to manage the entire company. This is not least because the group of companies is active in many different business areas and regions and should continue to grow and thus also give its employees the opportunity to develop. This task is complex, probably too complex, for the next generation, which does not have and cannot have 45 years of experience in different business areas. Therefore, Mr. Thomas was convinced that it was time to divide the group of companies into different business units that are more manageable and easier to control.

The outsourced companies are the complete precast, transport, asphalt, stone and road construction business, all other activities in Poland (ready-mix concrete and special binders), and the concrete components business in southern and western Germany.

Both groups of companies, thomas beteiligungen and thomas next, will be run as separate corporate entities. As far as ownership is concerned, this will remain unchanged in the hands of Mr. Thomas at thomas beteiligungen. In addition to thomas beteiligungen, Iris Thomas and external business partners with entrepreneurial experience will be involved in thomas next.