Europe: Holcim and Lafarge are in talks to renegotiate the terms of their Euro41bn merger after a divergence in the value of the two companies over the past year. The two sides are holding discussions that might result in changes to the terms of the one-for-one share deal announced last April 2015, according to The Financial Times.
It in unclear how the renegotiation might affect CRH, which agreed in February 2015 to pay Euro6.5bn for assets being sold by the two companies as they sought to address potential competition concerns over the deal.
In recent weeks Holcim shareholders have raised concerns over the terms of the deal, most vocally a representative for the Schmidheiny family, which is Holcim's largest investor. Thomas Schmidheiny, head of the family and a former Holcim chairman, wanted the terms of the deal renegotiated. Holcim's second largest shareholder, Eurocement, which is owned by Russian Filaret Galchev and holds 10% of the shares, has not publicly supported the deal.
