Loma Negra

Loma Negra Compania Industrial Argentina S.A. is Argentina's leading producer of cement, concrete and lime, founded in 1926 by businessman Alfredo Fortabat after he discovered substantial limestone deposits on his San Jacinto estate and built a cement plant at the hamlet of Loma Negra, meaning Black Hillock in Spanish. After Fortabat's death in 1976 his widow, Maria Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat, ran the company until 2005, when debts from Argentina's economic crisis forced the sale of her 80 percent stake to Camargo Correa for just over a billion dollars; the company, which then controlled roughly half of Argentina's cement production, is now a subsidiary of InterCement Participacoes under Brazilian conglomerate Mover Participacoes. Loma Negra trades on the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange under the ticker LOMA and as an American Depositary Share on the New York Stock Exchange, and is a MERVAL index component.