Early this year, it was hard to find many people who believed that HeidelbergCement, saddled with far more debt than it could handle, would escape the vortex of the financial storm that rocked the global economy.

Some believed that Bernd Scheifele, the chief executive, could not stay as it was his acquisition of Hanson, the UK rival, in 2007 that created HeidelbergCement’s financial woes.