He travelled to South Africa for the first time in 1916 and quickly became involved in the nation's gold mining industry as the grouting technique proved to be beneficial to this sector as well.
[2] Throughout the first half of the 20th century, numerous international subsidiaries of the Francois Cementation Company were established, often in economically attractive regions of what was then the British Empire, including Australia, Canada, India, and South Africa.
One of the board members, John Alexander Agnew, a director and later Chairman of Consolidated Goldfields asked his son-in-law, Abram Rupert Neelands, a Canadian mining engineer, to look over the company and report its prospects.
[10] During 1984, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher faced conflict-of-interest questions in the House of Commons about the involvement of her son Mark in representing Cementation in its bid to build a university in Oman at a time when the Prime Minister was urging Omanis to buy British.
[11][12] Throughout the late 20th century, the Cementation Company was involvement in various major civil engineering works.
It was often turned to by British Rail and its private predecessor companies to undertake work on specific projects, such as maintenance of the Severn Tunnel.
[1][19] Preferring to focus its attention on the northern hemisphere, Skanska arranged the sale of Cementation's subsidiaries in the Australian, Canadian and South African markets during 2003.