Papeteries de Vizille – of the Vicat Group

From raw materials extraction to the paper cement sack…

The Vicat Group’s industrial adventure started in 1817 when Louis Vicat invented artificial cement. His son, Louis Vicat, later founded the company in 1853. This family-run company is now active on the international front (11 countries), employs more than 7 400 individuals all over the world including around 2 600 in France and reported consolidated sales of 2 265 billion euros in 2011, of which nigh on 60% was to customers outside France.

The Group has three main business lines – Cement, Ready-Mix Concrete and Aggregates. Its complementary activities include building chemicals, precast concrete products, materials transport, papermaking and sacks with Papeteries de Vizille. It seeks balanced development, combining steady organic growth underpinned by industrial investment, through a selective external growth policy that focuses on new, promising markets.

The history of the Vicat Group

In the space of over 150 years the company, that is still family-run, has become an international French industrial group with a foothold in 11 countries. After acquiring the American Ragland cement concern in 1974, it made forays into Turkey in 1991 and 1994, Senegal in 1999, Switzerland in 2001, Egypt and Italy in 2003, Mali in 2004, Kazakhstan in 2007, and lastly India and Mauritania in 2008.

The enterprise culture

The key to Vicat’s success for over a century and a half has been its employees’ wholehearted adoption of the Group’s values. It has developed a strong enterprise culture that is based on five values – responsiveness, capacity to innovate, steadfastness, local proximity and strong Group identity.

Discover the Vicat Group

Research and development, innovation

In 1993, Vicat installed its research centre, the Louis Vicat Technical Centre, at L’Isle d’Abeau. The centre is located in the heart of the Rhône-Alpes region, close to its historic sites at Grenoble and its iconic Montalieu cement works in Isère. The centre houses three research laboratories:

the materials and microstructures materials analysis laboratory,

the Sigma concrete laboratory that formulates and monitors concretes and aggregates,

the building industry product formulation laboratory that fine tunes the composition of building finishing products.

Louis Vicat’s exploits marked the take-off of the cement industry. This spirit of innovation continues to drive the Group’s R&D teams, who are involved in projects from their birth to their industrial application.

Achieving sustainable development

Vizille paper mills exemplifies the Vicat Group’s environmental policy, placing the environment at the heart of its processes, with five main priorities: blending its quarries into their environment, optimising the choice of energy sources, water management, reducing pollution and taking climate protection measures such as CO2 emissions management.