Martin Marietta to Buy Lhoist North America in $13.5 Billion Mixed Deal
The acquisition would make Martin Marietta the nation's leading lime producer, advancing its SOAR 2030 strategy to build an irreplicable upstream materials platform.
Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. (NYSE: MLM) agreed to acquire Lhoist North America, Inc. for $13.5 billion in enterprise value, the company said, in a mixed cash-and-stock transaction expected to close in the second half of 2026.
The deal represents the largest move yet in Martin Marietta's SOAR 2030 strategic plan, which targets expansion of the company's upstream Specialties segment into lime and other industrial minerals. By absorbing Lhoist North America's operations, Martin Marietta would immediately establish itself as the leading national producer of lime solutions, a market the company has long identified as a complementary adjacency to its core aggregates business.
"This transaction represents another transformational milestone for Martin Marietta and directly advances our SOAR 2030 objective to expand our complementary, upstream Specialties segment in lime and other industrial minerals," said Ward Nye, the company's chair, president and chief executive. "It builds on our core quarrying competency, expands our geographic footprint and immediately establishes Martin Marietta as the leading national producer of lime solutions".
Lhoist North America is a subsidiary of the Belgian Lhoist Group and operates a network of lime and dolomite production facilities across the United States and Canada. Lime serves critical roles in steelmaking, environmental remediation, construction and agriculture—end markets that Martin Marietta has said offer through-cycle resilience similar to aggregates. The acquisition would give Martin Marietta an irreplicable upstream materials platform positioned for profitable growth across economic cycles.
The Lhoist deal caps a period of aggressive portfolio reshaping for Martin Marietta. In February 2026 the company completed a tax-efficient asset exchange with Quikrete Holdings, Inc., swapping its Midlothian cement plant and Texas ready-mixed concrete assets for aggregates operations producing roughly 20 million tons annually plus $450 million in cash. Weeks later, Martin Marietta signed a definitive agreement to acquire New Frontier Materials, a Midwestern aggregates-led producer. The company has deployed more than $11.5 billion toward acquisitions since 2021 as part of a disciplined capital-allocation strategy that also includes share repurchases, sustaining capital expenditures and dividends.
The transaction remains subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. Martin Marietta reaffirmed its full-year 2026 Adjusted EBITDA from continuing operations guidance of $2.43 billion at the midpoint, a figure that does not yet incorporate contributions from Lhoist North America. The company has targeted a net leverage range of 2.0 to 2.5 times and has said it intends to maintain an investment-grade credit rating through the transaction.