Ponce_Cement,_Inc.
Ponce Cement
Cement and limestone manufacturer in Ponce, Puerto Rico.
Ponce Cement, Inc. was a cement and limestone manufacturer in Ponce, Puerto Rico. The company was located at the intersection of PR-123 and PR-500, in Barrio Magueyes.[3] It was founded in 1941[4] by Antonio Ferré Bacallao, a Puerto Rican industrialist of Cuban origin.[5] In 1963, the company became the first Puerto Rican company to go public and be listed in the New York Stock Exchange.[6]
Ponce Cement was part of the Empresas Ferré enterprise from 1941 to 2002. In 1950, Empresas Ferré purchased another cement enterprise, the Puerto Rico Cement Company, then owned by the Government of Puerto Rico.[7] In 2002, Ponce Cement, Inc., was sold to Cemex, a Mexican business concern that is both the world's largest building materials supplier and the third largest cement producer, of which Ponce Cement is now a subsidiary.[8] The plant continues to operate at the same location, and continues to sell its products to the Puerto Rico market, but with the change in ownership, the company is no longer named Ponce Cement, Inc.; it is now Cemex, Puerto Rico.[9] The new owners did keep the Cemento Ponce product label.[10]