On May 19, the strategic ownership transition of Cementation Americas, Cementation Africa and Terra Nova Technologies (TNT) was commercially concluded – bringing the control of TNT and the Cementation Americas (including Merit Consultants International) and Cementation Africa operating entities under a consortium led by South African investment group Differential Capital by 25 June 2026.
This was highly significant for the global mining industry, as these assets, formerly under Murray & Roberts Ltd, represented and still represent, a large chunk of global excellence and expertise in areas like shaft sinking, underground mine development, contract mining, raise drilling and mining services, underground construction and specialised bulk material handling. They had faced very challenging conditions, as Murray & Roberts Ltd entered a business rescue process in November 2024, and the listed holding company, Murray & Roberts Holdings, entered liquidation, then finally ceased trading in January 2026.
The completion of the transition strengthens their position for continued growth and ongoing delivery of high-quality mining solutions across what are truly global operations. They are now backed by substantial capital support from major institutional investors with a clear long-term strategic focus.
As the process was completing, IM Editorial Director, Paul Moore, talked to the Managing Directors of all three main companies involved – Japie du Plessis, Managing Director at Cementation Africa; Eric Smith, Managing Director of Cementation Americas; and Stephen Kou, Managing Director of Terra Nova Technologies. This was to better understand how the new Cementation companies can and are moving forward and putting this period of uncertainty behind them – entering a new phase of global leadership in the key mining services that they provide, both as distinct entities and now also has a unified Cementation group of companies – focused on providing value-added solutions across the full lifecycle of mining projects, with an emphasis on safety, operational excellence, and long-standing partnerships.
Left to right: Japie du Plessis, Managing Director at Cementation Africa; Eric Smith, Managing Director of Cementation Americas; and Stephen Kou, Managing Director of Terra Nova Technologies
One of the reasons behind the ownership transition and separation was of course providing a new capital investment base – but a big part of that has also been removing perceived uncertainty in terms of Cementation’s ability to take on larger contracts due to its association with Murray & Roberts Ltd and the problems faced by the former holding company.
Stephen Kou told IM: “Speaking for the businesses in the Americas outside of South Africa, even prior to the business rescue process initiating about a year and a half ago, those businesses were affiliated companies and therefore already ring-fenced outside of the liquidity issues within South Africa. So, despite some misunderstanding in the market, we’ve in fact maintained our financial strength and stability during the entire process. We are actually in a strong position at the moment, and we’ve worked with our clients and our suppliers to reassure them that that is the case and that in fact we are positioned for growth now that this transaction is finally closed.”
Eric Smith added: “Some of the headwinds that we did experience were from assumptions that either existing or potential clients made without realising that we were ring-fenced. The main one was always assuming that the subsidiary relies on the shareholder for financial backing; and that the creditors of the shareholder would have access to the assets of the subsidiaries. And yes, this assumption was made in a few cases, and it created challenges winning new work, and even saw some existing projects get cancelled. But early on in the process, we worked very hard to highlight the financial strengths and the financial independence of the Americas companies.”
Japie du Plessis added: “While the Americas businesses were indeed ring-fenced from South Africa, Murray & Roberts Cementation was in the same building as Murray & Roberts Ltd, which was the holding company for our businesses and the main operating entity of Murray Roberts Holdings. So being a South African business, we were really the only one that could support the group from a cash perspective. The implications for us at the time were huge – you only have to see that our claim in the business rescue plan is circa ZAR 900 million. So we had a huge cash drain out of our business as a result. Not only that, but our business carried the Murray & Roberts branding. And when Murray & Roberts Ltd entered business rescue, because we shared the same branding, our clients and suppliers were initially worried that they wouldn’t get paid, and that their projects wouldn’t get completed. So we had to do a lot of negotiation, discussion and engagements with clients and suppliers.”
All of the Cementation assets now come under a UK-registered holding company called UGM Global Services Ltd
He adds: “At that point in time, clients saw us as a concentration risk on some of their projects and diversified on contractors. We have been through a difficult period but we started landing new work since our rebranding to the Cementation Africa brand about 10 months ago.”
For du Plessis the rebranding away from Murray & Roberts Cementation to just Cementation Africa was really key to reshaping the link to the Murray & Roberts Ltd business rescue: “I think it’s important to understand that we’ve always been outside of the business rescue process but we definitely felt the brunt of the link that we had with our parent company.”
Another point of discussion was how the assets are now organised from an umbrella level. All of the Cementation assets now come under a UK-registered holding company called UGM Global Services Ltd controlled by Differential Capital whose senior executive team are also among its Directors – including CEO Vincent Anthonyrajah and Head of Special Situations Fund, Mark Salmon.
For now, the intent is for UGM to be just the corporate umbrella and holding company and to keep the operating Cementation companies as separate entities but to find potential synergies and capital efficiency across the group where possible.
Beyond that, the completion of the ownership change represents a new opportunity for the Cementation companies to work together to create more synergies – while this was happening before to some extent – the specialised nature of the services the companies provide and the global nature of the market mean it could really be a win-win across the board.
TNT was already working closely with Cementation Americas as it was acquired by that operating company in 2019, but Cementation Africa and Cementation Americas were really operating like distinct businesses while sharing the Cementation name.
Kou commented: “The original intent of acquiring TNT by Cementation Americas was to find synergies between our core of material handling expertise both in surface mining and underground mining conveying; and the wider underground mining group’s leadership position globally – so that we could offer more complete solutions on an EPC type basis; integrating the conveying and material handling equipment side of things with mine contracting services. We actually have experience in that and we’ve been promoting that capability – a great example is our work as a consolidated team in 2020/2021 for the Newmont ConRamp conveyor project located at the Musselwhite gold mine at Lake Opapimiskan, Ontario, which is now operated by Orla. Since then, we’ve been promoting jointly and working together on various studies. As a combined group of focused companies, we’re leaner and more agile, without the burden of a large holding company. So we can develop solutions together in an efficient and integrated manner.”
TNT is currently working in Portugal at Boliden’s Somincor for their Zinc Expansion Project where it has supplied the entire underground material handling system from the underground jaw crusher all the way through the inclined conveyors to the surface and then with Wood supplied all the in-plant conveyors as well under a different package. It isn’t an example of a joint project with Cementation but highlights the type of project they could deliver together.
Smith added: “We’re all in early days of the discussions and have had some strategy meetings, but I think we absolutely have some very similar capabilities, but with expertise in our own respective markets. There are functions of the business, including engineering and potentially even asset management, where there’s definitely going to be opportunities to ensure that resources are able to be deployed where they’re needed globally. We are geared towards very large, technically complex projects. And so in order to execute those type of projects, it takes a pretty good staff on hand in terms of engineering. And, you know, one of the things that both Cementation companies are experts at is sinking shafts, and there’s some very technical requirements to be able to do that safely. We also do have some clients in common, and we’ll definitely be working towards ensuring there’s a more unified offering to our global clients.”
Du Plessis continued: “As a group, we are blessed with amazing talent across all jurisdictions and also a lot of long term knowledge of the business and the processes that are involved with executing our projects. There are pockets of excellence in Africa, and in the Americas, and I think it’s for us to figure out how best to leverage all that expertise. From an engineering design perspective, there’s an opportunity to design across time zones, to get design work out more efficiently. There are also opportunities to take a more global approach in marketing as well as to collaborate on putting bids together. There is definitely the intention also to create greater buying power in terms of things like mining equipment procurement.”
Training is another area where there will be cooperation between different Cementation companies and du Plessis pointed out this has already happened historically. “When we started up the Venetia Underground sinking project, we had a Canadian shaft superintendent come across to South Africa from Cementation there. He spent a significant amount of time here to train our guys on the processes because we deployed technology that the teams in Canada developed. Similarly, when the team from what was then RUC Mining were executing a shaft sink in Mongolia, we assisted with a lot of technical people from mechanical superintendents to sinkers, shaft foremen and hoist drivers. So there’s always been a sharing of skills.”
Sharing of technology expertise is another one. Cementation Americas has been trialling mechanical rock cutting quite successfully – partnering with Komatsu on a technology trial of the MC51 hard rock continuous miner at Niobec’s minesite in Quebec. Du Plessis: “We have also had engagements with the OEM. So, once that technology is proven and perfected, there are also lots of opportunities in the African market where that technology could be deployed. So there’s definitely a lot of potential on the technology side in knowledge sharing and technology testing. From the South African side, we already have a lot of experience with Level 9 collision avoidance tech, that has been driven by legislation in our part of the world, but is an area where we can offer our learnings to Cementation elsewhere.”
It is also important to point out that the new unified group is not and will not be restricted to work in Africa and the Americas. Stephen Kou: “TNT and then the Cementation businesses are quite distinct businesses. TNT, while active mainly in the Western Hemisphere, has supplied material handling equipment into just about every continent – for example the major crushing and conveying project we are now completing at AMSA Centinela with Sigdo Koppers. But in terms of the medium term we’re also looking at Central Asia, all the activity in Argentina that may go forward in the coming years, plus of course Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. There may be opportunities in these regions both for TNT itself but also TNT working in partnership with other Cementation entities.”
Eric Smith points out that there was also a gap in the market created by some of the Murray & Roberts business rescue in Australia when Murray & Roberts Australia went into receivership. “There’s common clients that were working with M&R in Australia that we have across Asia, including Indonesia, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan. So, Cementation Americas has now set up businesses in those countries specifically to be able to work closely with those clients. The main operating entity for M&R in Australia was RUC Mining, which has now been bought by one of our main competitors. So strategically and for competitive reasons, it is important for many of these clients to have another option in areas like shaft sinking and contract mining. We have established businesses and are already tendering for work in Australia and the other countries mentioned.”
Du Plessis adds: “Cementation Africa was always very strong in South Africa, but we are also working hard to improve our African footprint. It has reduced significantly since 2020 but we are actively executing in Zambia and we’re really pushing hard into Ghana. Ghana’s latest mining legislation requires operators to use a contract mining model which they have to comply with by end 2026 – we now have a fully compliant business established in Ghana called RCA Mining Services with a local partner there, Rabotec, so we are well positioned to take advantage of that market opportunity – and this is just one example. Historically, M&R Cementation was also active in Europe and the Middle East as well – so long term we may look at re-entering some of those markets as well.”