Island Cement has stepped up its bid to win the contract for the Dockyard Cement Facility, The Royal Gazette can exclusively reveal.

Current leaseholder Maxcem's six-month deal expires at the end of this month and Island Cement has put in an application to run the plant at Dockyard after an offer to join forces with Maxcem to lease and operate the facility was rejected.

Maxcem has also applied to have its contract renewed, but with the deadline having elapsed at the end of last month, no decision has been announced by the facility's landlord West End Development Company (Wedco) about who has been awarded the new deal. Maxcem's general manager Chris Shanks confirmed yesterday his company had put in an application to extend its lease of the facility, but had not heard back from Wedco.

Island Cement's president Myron Piper, who said he had heard nothing from Government since submitting the proposal in June, said his company's offer to buy all of Maxcem's Bermudian-owned shares was initially turned down.

He added that Maxcem's major overseas shareholder partner Cemex had also rejected Maxcem's counter-offer to allow Island Cement to buy a minority stake.

"Maxcem shareholders rejected our initial share conversion proposal, counter-offered with a proposal to allow Island Cement to purchase a minority position in their organisation, subject to support by Cemex, its major overseas shareholder partner," Mr. Piper said.

"It has been reported, Cemex rejected the Maxcem Bermudian shareholders' recommendation to form an alliance with Island Cement after five months of negotiations — this is very disappointing, as Island Cement has acted in good faith and the current Dockyard cement lease expires at the end of December 2008."

Mr. Piper, who said in July that Island Cement ticks all the boxes for Government's requirements for a 100-percent Bermudian-owned and operated company, as well as fulfilling its mandate for black empowerment, was sticking to his guns.

"All things being equal, Island Cement will continue to pursue our proposal to Wedco and the Bermuda Government to lease their cement facility, as it's our opinion, solely on the basis of merit, our proposal surpasses Maxcem if based on the RFP (request for proposal) criteria," he said.

Pooling the resources of Island Cement and Maxcem, Mr. Piper claimed back in October, they would be able to use Island Cement's suppliers Titan Cement — which has proposed to supply 60,000 metric tonnes of bulk cement per year to the company over ten years — or LaFrage. The two companies are respectively the largest and sixth-largest multi-national cement manufacturers in the world.

Otherwise the merged companies could have used Maxcem's current partner, Cemex, which holds a major stake in Maxcem, to provide cement at an affordable price to the Island's booming construction industry, said Mr. Piper.

"It would have made good business sense for Maxcem to accept our proposal — Jim Butterfield's operation had 12 shareholders, Maxcem reduced their shareholders to just six, namely Dennis Correia and Cemex as majority shareholders (approximately 80 percent) and the four other shareholders," he said.

"Maxcem has approximately 40 percent of its profits going overseas to an international conglomerate "

Mr. Piper also confirmed reports that Island Cement's alliance partner, Titan Cement, had laid off approximately 75 staff and closed three of its cement block plants in Florida, about ten percent of its block production in the state, as a result of the global economic crisis and downturn in the construction industry, but added that it would affect its supply of cement to Island Cement.

"After three years of perseverance, Island Cement will continue to fight to operate the cement facility until Wedco award's a long-term lease," he said.

"We are a 100 percent Bermudian-owned and supportive of our Government's efforts to solicit and encourage the participation of qualified Bermudian individual shareholders and corporate stakeholders in government owned ventures.

"Additionally, we have a signed contract with The Home Depot/Titan Cement to provide our organisation an uninterrupted supply of cement to Bermuda over the next 20 years — we are well-qualified — what better alliance partners could a company request than the largest worldwide building retailer and sixth largest cement company?"

Island Cement, which is backed by major shareholder the Bermuda Industrial Union, which has a 20-percent share in the company, submitted a proposal to Government to lease and operate the plant at Dockyard in June, but Wedco granted Maxcem a six-month extension to its contract. Mr. Piper said he had heard nothing from Government since submitting the proposal in June.