Tarmac (company)

Tarmac

Type	Private limited company
Industry	Building materials
Founded	March 2013 (as Lafarge Tarmac)
Headquarters	Solihull, Birmingham, United Kingdom
Area served	United Kingdom
Key people	Martin Riley (Senior Vice President) Cyrille Ragoucy (former Chief Executive Officer)
Products	Aggregates Ready-mix concrete Asphalt Asphalt surfacing Cement
Services	Maintenance services Waste services
Revenue	£1.8 billion (2010 pro forma)
Number of employees	6,600
Parent	CRH plc
Subsidiaries	Tarmac Trading Tarmac Holdings Tarmac Cement and Lime Tarmac Services Tarmac Building Products
Website	www.tarmac.com

Tarmac is a British building materials company headquartered in Solihull, Birmingham. The company was formed as Lafarge Tarmac in March 2013 by the merger of Anglo American's Tarmac UK and Lafarge's UK operations. In July 2014, Anglo American agreed to sell its stake to Lafarge, to assist Lafarge in its merger with Holcim and allay competition concerns.

Prior to 1999 Tarmac Plc was an aggregates to construction company dating from 1903. It was demerged in 1999 with the Construction and Professional services arms forming Carillion plc. The aggregates and building materials side of the business retained the Tarmac name and was bought by Anglo American shortly afterwards.

In February 2015, Lafarge announced that the business would be sold to CRH plc, once Anglo American had sold its stake. Anglo American completed the sale in July 2015, and the acquisition by CRH completed the following month. Following the purchase, Lafarge Tarmac was rebranded as Tarmac.

In February 2011 Anglo American and Lafarge announced their intention to merge their British construction materials businesses, excluding Lafarge's UK gypsum activities.

In September 2011 the proposed transaction was referred to the Competition Commission by the Office of Fair Trading, and in February 2012 the Commission reported that it had a "number of concerns" about the combination.

The deal was set to combine Anglo American's Tarmac UK unit, employing 4,500 people, with Lafarge's cement, concrete and aggregate quarries, depots and terminals. Due to the size of the venture, the Office of Fair Trading referred it to the UK's Competition Commission who concluded in May 2012 that due to the potential loss of competition in the aggregates, asphalt, cement and ready-mix concrete markets, some of their assets should be sold. In November 2012, Lafarge and Anglo American agreed to the sale of £285 million worth of British assets to Mittal Investments. In December of that year, Anglo American's Tarmac unit became Hope Ready Mixed Concrete Limited, whilst Lafarge's assets became Hope Cement Limited. The deal was completed in January 2013 with the creation of Hope Construction Materials.