About Guy Sidos
Guy Sidos, chairman and CEO of Vicat, has been discussing the company's financial performance and strategic positioning. In June 2025, he stated that despite a 50% rise in the company's stock price, Vicat remains undervalued relative to its sector, attributing this to the company's stability and clear strategy. He described the company's debt management approach as simple: borrowing when money was cheap to invest and modernize, and repaying when it became more expensive. Sidos also noted that the first half of 2025 was "soft" due to low construction demand and poor weather, but said the situation was not alarming.
Sidos has frequently addressed the cement industry's environmental impact and Vicat's decarbonization efforts. He has described cement as responsible for 7-8% of global CO2 emissions, but noted that in France the figure is 1.8%. He has presented Vicat's roadmap to reduce emissions by 90%, including using waste-derived fuel instead of coal, developing a cement called "Cara" with a negative carbon footprint, and exploring hydrogen and carbon capture technologies. Sidos has argued that cement is "indispensable" for climate resilience and that the industry can sustain innovation that loses money for 15 years before becoming a "game changer." He has also stated that the real challenge is housing people with dignity, requiring all local materials, and that Vicat is seen by financial investors as a "locomotive" driving ecological transformation, a role he said the company embraces proactively rather than as a constraint.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Guy Sidos's recent appearances.
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Transcript (15 segments)
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Interviewer0:09
Good morning business. It's 7:19 AM, and in the construction industry, it's a sprint to become carbon neutral. And that's timely because in cement, a new European standard should reduce CO2 emissions by 45 to 50% thanks to new healthy materials. With Guy Sidos, CEO of Vicat, are you experiencing a real revolution in your sector? You were looking for a very rapid transition.
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Guy Sidos0:40
Our group, Vicat, is a French family cement company whose origins date back to the invention of artificial cement in 1817. It was the result of a long research chain initiated by the English after the Great Fire of London in 1666. They realized that building a city in wood was dangerous. So Louis Vicat invented artificial cement and donated his invention to the communities. What we are experiencing now, with the pressure on construction to reduce carbon emissions and this new European standard, is a new revolution. This standard allows us to reduce what we call clinker, the binding agent. We can make ternary mixtures with active clay that achieve equivalent performance with 40% less carbon footprint. So there is progress in the ecological and energy transition.
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Interviewer1:56
Is there demand for this revolution?
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Guy Sidos2:03
Demand should follow. We are moving from a demand economy to a supply economy. Our supply is driven by two aspects: an evolution of industrial processes and decarbonization of our cement manufacturing processes. We have more and more decarbonized cement or concrete, hybrid products that combine carbon elements, less carbon elements, or even carbon-negative elements.
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Interviewer2:41
But is there reluctance from construction companies to use these new materials because they don't know them or how they will age?
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Guy Sidos2:51
There is great enthusiasm for these new materials. But there is a great responsibility for builders. When you build a concrete house, it's for a century. So we must be sure these materials will last. There are qualification phases, which is why standards can take time. But once they are there, believe me, it pushes hard.
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Interviewer3:21
Can we imagine that for you these are higher value-added products with potentially more margin? There have been additional investments, so a higher selling price, and for builders an additional cost.
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Guy Sidos3:37
The cost of cement in a construction is a few percent. So the debate is not really there. Additional margin will come from industrialization of the process. When you produce one ton, it's expensive; when you produce a million, it's cheaper. So we are looking to create new decarbonized standards.
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Interviewer4:08
Is the future revolution always concrete and cement? You talk about wood, new materials, wooden buildings, wooden towers. Are you afraid of not moving fast enough and being overtaken by these new materials?
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Guy Sidos4:26
The issue is not materials. The issue is to decently house the six million French people who are poorly housed. For that, we need all materials, all local materials. The particularity of cement is that it is a material produced locally for local needs by local people. It is truly a local industry. When we talk about circular economy, cement is a successful industrial example of circular economy. We are in the process of completely eliminating the use of fossil fuels, replaced by the energy part of waste from the cities that we supply with cement.
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Interviewer5:05
I recall your group has 2.8 billion in revenue, nearly 10,000 employees, two-thirds in France but also in America, the United States, Brazil, Asia, India, Kazakhstan. Is your objective to develop further on these local markets? France represents one third.
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Guy Sidos5:24
We have a policy. We are mountaineers; we advance in small steps. Our last implantation was in Brazil, a business we had been following for fifteen years. We partnered with a Brazilian family whose ancestors built that plant. This policy will continue, but currently we are in a logic of brownfield growth, i.e., on existing sites we install modern tools that consume less energy, which is an aspect of the ecological transition and also avoids the use of fossil fuels. We are currently building a plant in the United States in Alabama.
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Interviewer6:17
Do you also feel pressure from investors who, to lend you money, require a better carbon footprint than before? Is there pressure from financiers?
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Guy Sidos6:29
There is great interest from financial players, especially towards Vicat, which is seen as the locomotive pulling the train of ecological transformation. This pressure will come with the taxonomy and the evolution of European regulations. But it is not seen as a constraint; on the contrary, it is a movement in which we are extremely proactive, with a lot of work on decarbonization of processes and on cross-industry initiatives, notably we are very active on hydrogen. I had the opportunity to talk about it on this set some time ago. At all levels of the value chain.
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Interviewer7:12
Thank you very much, Guy Sidos, CEO of Vicat, for being with us to talk about this transformation of concrete and cement, always with the objective of less carbon emissions. Thank you.
