On 1st March 1949, the Alois Kern company leased the Peggau plant. The cement works that had been planned and even started before the War were completed in no time. In September 1949, cement production was taken up although the situation was not at all very economical: both the raw materials and the cement had to be ground in one and the same mill, and it was not until 1953 that a separate raw mill went into operation. In the first few years, the average output was 30,000 tonnes of cement; by 1955, the average output had already risen to some 50,000. It was only in 1958 that Alois Kern was able to purchase the plant, which was still in German hands and administered by the allied occupation forces. In 1959, a settlement was reached concerning the shares in the Peggauer Zementwerke Alois Kern on the one hand, and the Wietersdorfer Zementwerke Phil. Knoch & Co. on the other hand.
