Dalmia Cement Bharat, the cement arm of Dalmia Bharat Group, has set up a research and development (R&D) centre at Padi in Chennai. The centre has been launched to support the manufacturing, marketing and innovation initiatives of the company and deliver ground-breaking solutions, which will create industry benchmarks.

In the largest rupee bond sale for a leveraged buyout, Ahmedabad-based detergent major Nirma has raised a Rs 4,000-crore debt to buy the cement business of French major Lafarge India.

The India Cements has embarked on a two-pronged initiative to stay ´healthy and all-time fit´. The exercise will largely focus on delivering value for stakeholders in the company.

A recovery in demand on the back of a good monsoon this year and low capacity additions are likely to reflect in the earnings of cement companies, leading to a re-rating of shares of these firms, according to a Deutsche Bank sector note.

Sarbottam Cement has launched its OPC and PSC cement in the market for the first time. Sarbottam Cement has a production capacity of 40,000 bags per day, it also has up to 4,500 Blaine fineness, made by European VRM machine imported from Denmark for the first time in Nepal along with modern cross bar cooler and IMCC technology.

Emami´s foray into the cement space, Nirma´s entry into the segment after the buyout of Lafarge India´s 11 mn tonne (mt) cement business, and Shree Cement´s proposed investments, have laid the ground for cement players eyeing more revenues from east India.

Emami group plans to have a national footprint for its cement business in the next five to seven years by setting up plants in Rajasthan and Karnataka. Emami Cement, a group company, is in the process of setting up a plant at Panagarh in West Bengal with a capacity of 2 mpta at a cost of Rs 500 crore.

Shree Cement has reported an over four-fold jump in its standalone net profit at Rs 507.67 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2016. The firm had clocked a net profit of Rs 104.11 crore in the year-ago period.

The government recently announced that 323 cement samples were found not conforming to the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) norms in the last three years.