The exit of concrete producer Holcim New Zealand from local manufacturing will go ahead and the company will also moves its management to Australia.
The New Zealand Herald reported that current Holcim New Zealand managing director Jeremy Smith will lose his role eventually, with a country manager being appointed for New Zealand under a new Australian run management structure.
Production at the Westport cement plan will close by the second half of 2016 when new import facilities in Auckland and Timaru are fully operational says The New Zealand Herald.
A planned new concrete manufacturing facility at Weston in North Otago is on hold but the company is keeping the Westport assets so that it has the future option of building a new plant.
Holcim announced last August that imported cement would replace that produced by the Westport facility.
The company has received the go-ahead to build two 30,000-tonne import terminals, one which will commence construction at Timaru PrimePort in August and another will commence in Auckland in December.
The changes to the business model locally reduces the scale of the business says The New Zealand Herald, so the logical decision by Holcim has been to combine the management of the New Zealand and Australian operations.
The position of managing director currently held by Smith will be disestablished at the end of 2014, but he will remain with the company into 2015 to facilitate a handover to the newly appointed country manager.
