Zemex Corp. recently announced a loss for the year 2000 of $8.0 million, which included one-time charges of $27.7 million and a pre-tax gain from the sale of its Pyron division of $15.7 million. Richard Lister, president of Zemex stated that "the year 2000 was a good year from an operating point of view for most of our industrial mineral operations and not a good year for our Alumitech operations, our calcium aluminate facility or our North Carolina mica operations. Our talc and mica units finished a strong year with our phlogopite mica completing its best year ever. Our feldspar and clay units had very solid performances¿ The outlook for 2001 is good. Our feldspar operations continue to perform well. The business activity levels were strong through 2000 and continued strong into the first quarter of 2001. This material serves the sanitaryware and tile industry, which in turn serves the housing market and we have seen continued demand for both new housing and remodeling."