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The cement maker said on Tuesday that it had logged $882 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) for July-September, comfortably above an LSEG consensus estimate of $858 million. Sign up here. Increased prices helped revenue tick 5% higher, despite cement sales volumes being flat while volumes for ready-mix concrete and aggregates such as sand and gravel slipped slightly. Cost-cutting measures including headcount reductions resulted in around $90 million in savings. Cemex's workforce dropped to just over 40,200 employees in the quarter, a 9% decline from the same period a year earlier. Net income tumbled 35% to $264 million, mainly due to one-off gains the previous year from the sale of operations in Guatemala. Without that factor, net profit climbed 8%, Cemex said. Under CEO Jaime Muguiro, who took the helm in April after his predecessor retired, Cemex has sought to shed non-core assets and focus more on its aggregates business in the United States. In July, he flagged that more divestitures were in the works. Reporting by Kylie Madry; Editing by Edwina Gibbs Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Kylie Madry is a headline news reporter covering business, politics and breaking news for all of Latin America. She's based out of the Reuters office in Mexico City, where she was previously a freelance journalist and translator working on award-winning podcasts, books about Mexico's drug lords and stories ranging from the fight for clean water to the millions spent on the city's surveillance system. Kylie is originally from Dallas, Texas.
