Displaying items by tag: Acquisition
Reliance Infrastructure might sell Reliance Cement
13 March 2015India: Reliance Infrastructure, part of Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group, has decided to sell its cement business, Reliance Cement, to fund the acquisition of Pipavav Defence and Offshore Engineering, which it is acquiring for US$331m.
Reliance Cement is in talks with HeidelbergCement and Italcementi and has offered a 50% stake in the company. The prospective joint venture partner will also fund the company's cement capacity expansion, which is estimated to rise to 15Mt/yr by 2018. Details of the valuation of the possible deal are unknown. HeidelbergCement has operations in Damoh in Madhya Pradesh, Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh and Ammasandra in Karnataka. Italcementi is active in India via Zuari Cement.
Reliance Cement has a 5Mt/yr capacity cement plant in Maihar, Madhya Pradesh. As part of its expansion plan, it is setting up another 5Mt/yr plant in Maharashtra, which is set to be operational by 2017. It is also planning another 5Mt/yr of capacity to be operational by 2018, via a second line in Madhya Pradesh, a new plant in Karnataka or a new plant in Rajasthan.
China: SOCAM Development Ltd has agreed to sell its entire 45% stake in Lafarge Shui On Cement Ltd, its cement joint venture project, to its partner Lafarge for US$329m. Lafarge Shui On Cement has 32Mt/yr of cement production capacity in southwest China, in Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou and Chongqing Provinces. The sale would make Lafarge Shui On Cement a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lafarge.
SOCAM Development, which has been seeking to sell its cement operations since 2013, said that the disposal would allow it to focus on its construction business and to capture opportunities arising from a massive public housing programme recently announced by the Hong Kong government.
Ireland: CRH expects to receive regulatory decisions on a Euro6.5bn purchase Holcim and Lafarge operations as soon as March 2015. CRH chief executive Albert Manifold said that the acquired facilities would help CRH to expand in both North America and Europe, where it sees opportunities to expand its business.
"There are significant building needs and funding going to countries like Poland, Slovakia and Romania," said Manifold. He added that construction growth in those countries could be as high as 4%/yr over the next 10 years. Manifold said that CRH had already begun discussions with regulators in the various markets and expected decisions in March and April 2015. The acquisitions require the approval of CRH shareholders and an extraordinary shareholders meeting has been scheduled for 19 March 2015 for this purpose. Manifold said that CRH would continue to trim its portfolio and make further acquisitions.
Dalmia Cement increases its stake in OCL India to 74.6% for US$165m
26 February 2015India: Dalmia Cement has raised its stake holding in OCL India from 48% to 74.6% through an inter-se share transfer within the promoter group. It acquired a 4.13% stake from Mridu Hari Dalmia and a 22.45% stake from Mridu Hari Dalmia Parivar Trust at a share price of US$10.9 though open market transactions. The deal is worth US$165m. Since the deal involves inter-se transfer, it will not trigger an open offer for OCL India, despite breaching the creeping acquisition limit of a listed firm.
As part of consolidation and growth of the cement sector, Dalmia Bharat Group has been strategically acquiring assets and creating new assets in southern, eastern and northeastern India. OCL India has plants in Odisha and West Bengal. With Dalmia Cement increasing its stake in OCL India, Dalmia group will have 48% of its capacity in south India and the remaining 52% in east and northeast India.
"The move will help to create better operational synergies. It is a step forward in the commitment towards aligning all stakeholders' interests and overall value creations," said Dalmia Bharat. Dalmia Group expects to have a total capacity of 24Mt/yr in the 2015 – 2016 financial year through both greenfield and brownfield projects.
Cemex guaranteed 35% stake in Trinidad Cement
18 February 2015Trinidad & Tobago: Cemex has struck a deal with the board of Trinidad Cement Limited (TCL) that will allow Cemex to increase its stake in TCL to at least 35%, with the option to add another 5%.
Cemex SAB de CV currently owns 20% of TCL, the maximum that was allowable per shareholder, through Sierra Trading. It has committed not to seek a stake higher than 40% of TCL under an accompanying deal to an upcoming rights issue. The deal, referred to as a Subscription Agreement, was signed by Sierra and TCL on the same day that TCL's shareholders voted to remove the cap on ownership of TCL shares.
Sierra will take up its full allowable allotment under the rights offer that gives shareholders the option to acquire one additional share for every two held. Some 124,882,568 shares will be available for subscription. If Sierra fails to reach its 35% ownership target at the close of the offer, "Then subject to receiving all required approvals, including shareholder approval, a private placement of TCL shares will be issued in favour of Sierra Trading in an amount that will permit Sierra Trading to achieve a shareholding of 35% of TCL's outstanding shares," said a Trinidad Cement spokesperson. The TCL board, under the leadership of chairman and shareholder Wilfred Espinet, also signed off on an 'exclusive' plan for Sierra to buy up the TCL shares that are not taken up during the rights offer, but under terms where Sierra's stake does not exceed 40% of the publicly traded company.
The ownership structure of TCL is undergoing changes that, according to the board, will facilitate a new debt-restructuring plan under negotiation with creditors. The loan agreements of 2012 that lengthened the maturity profile of the debt by six years were placed on hold by the current board while it negotiated a new deal. Consequently, TCL's US$315m of long-term debt was reclassified as short-term obligations.
Dongwu Cement buys Shanghai Biofit Environmental Technology
17 February 2015China: Dongwu Cement has agreed to acquire Shanghai Biofit Environmental Technology Co Ltd for US$5.11m. With a tier-3 professional contractor qualification for environmental engineering, Shanghai Biofit is principally engaged in organic wastewater treatment, sludge treatment and disposal, comprehensive treatment of urban organic waste and other integrated environment services.
CRH wins the race to the LafargeHolcim gold
04 February 2015CRH has made good on its intentions. This week it stumped up Euro6.5bn to buy assets from Lafarge and Holcim in four continents. The move follows preparation since at least May 2014 when the Irish building materials group announced a divestment programme. In October 2014 it announced that it would sell its brickwork division.
CRH is finding the cash through a mix of existing cash, debt and equity placing. Interestingly, back in 2012 an Irish stockbroking analyst who was interviewed reckoned that the company could spend up to Euro3.5bn on acquisitions whilst remaining within its banking agreements. Throw in the recent sales and planned divestments and the planned acquisition from LafargeHolcim doesn't seem like too much of a stretch for CRH.
If completed, the purchase will see CRH take on 24 cement plants with a production capacity of 36Mt/yr. As a back of the envelope calculation suggests the sale price of Euro6.5bn isn't far off the occasionally used price of US$200/t for western cement production. The deal also includes aggregates, ready mixed concrete and asphalt assets.
The purchase marks a change in CRH's buying strategy both in terms of scale and distribution. Much of CRH's previous acquisitions have been minority shareholdings that make it difficult to accurately report the company's position in the cement industry. For example, in our Top 100 Report CRH was reported to have a production capacity of 6.49Mt/yr for majority shareholdings with another 19.9Mt/yr for minority shareholdings. The new cement capacity being purchased blows this away because it more than doubles CRH's total capacity and it appears to be all majority owned. CRH thinks that this will propel it to become the world's third biggest building materials manufacturer after LafargeHolcim and Saint-Gobain, leapfrogging Cemex and HeidelbergCement in the process. Strangely there is no mention of the huge Chinese players in the top five manufacturers in CRH's acquisition presentation.
CRH has avoided buying plants in southern Europe but it is relying on the slowly improving growing UK market, where CRH will pick up four plants, to balance the risk. Elsewhere in Europe, the three Holcim plants in France have been suffering from continued low construction rates in that country and the two Lafarge cement plants in Romania are unlikely to have recovered from a production fall in 2013. Outside of Europe growth has been poor in Quebec in 2013 and 2014, where CRH is buying two plants from Holcim. Both Lafarge and Holcim have also seen a slowdown in Brazil. However, the Philippines does seem like a better bet for CRH, with solid cement volumes growth seen by Lafarge in 2013 and the first three quarters of 2014.
With CRH now looking like a company that wants to produce cement rather than one that owns parts of companies that produce cement, all eyes are on the construction markets. 14 of the 24 cement plants CRH are buying are in Europe. Buying at the bottom of a sustained production slump makes sense because the asking price will be low. However, has the bottom been reached yet?
Kading to acquire majority of System Cement
02 February 2015Ukraine: Mining company Kading Companies has signed an agreement to acquire 70% of Ukrainian cement producer, System Cement Group (SCG). System Cement owns 100% of SCG, which is located in Vinnitsa, Ukraine. Kading said that its next objective would be to produce consolidated audited financial statements. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Kading Companies is focused on mining operations that are producing or can be producing within six months of acquisition. Kading is focused on a global basis, with its initial emphasis in South America, West Africa and now Ukraine.
Holcim and Lafarge announce assets sale to CRH
02 February 2015World: Lafarge and Holcim have entered exclusive negotiations to sell a number of assets to Ireland's CRH for Euro6.5bn as part of their planned merger. The assets include operations in Europe, Canada, Brazil and the Philippines. The combined assets, which include Lafarge Tarmac in the UK, generated Euro5.2bn of sales in 2014, with estimated 2014 operating earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of Euro744m.
"The projected transaction is a key step towards the creation of LafargeHolcim and the value offered reflects the strong quality of the selected assets. With this announcement, we remain firmly on track to complete our proposed merger in the first half of 2015," said Wolfgang Reitzle, designated chairman of the Board of Directors of LafargeHolcim and Bruno Lafont, designated CEO of the future combined company.
The divestment process will be carried out in the framework of the relevant social processes and the ongoing dialogue with the employee representatives' bodies. It will be submitted to the relevant competition authorities and to the shareholders of CRH. The divestments are subject to the completion of the merger, including a successful public exchange offering and approval by Holcim's shareholders in the second quarter of 2015. The closing of the planned merger is expected in the first half of 2015.
UltraTech buys Jaypee’s Madhya Pradesh cement plants
29 January 2015India: Jaiprakash Associates (Jaypee Group) has announced that it will sell two cement plants in Madhya Pradesh State to UltraTech Cement. The assets comprise cement plants and grinding facilities in Bela and Sidhi with a total capacity of 4.9Mt/yr, along with an associated 180MW power plant to supply them.
UltraTech will pay US$740m in non-convertible debentures (loan certificates) and shares worth US$16m for the facilities. It will also assume a net debt and negative working capital of US$128m associated with the businesses. This puts the overall value of the transaction at US$628m.
The sale is part of Jaypee's programme to pay-down debt. It has sold assets worth US$3.6bn in pursuit of this aim. This includes some US$1.6bn of assets in its cement business. However, it said that it remains India's third-largest cement producer, with a capacity of 22Mt/yr.
Jaypee's largest previous cement divestment was also to UltraTech. In 2014, it sold a 2.4Mt/yr cement plant in Kutch and a 2.4Mt/yr grinding plant in Wanakbori, both in Gujarat State, for US$620m. The deal was closed in June 2014. In September 2014, Jaypee announced the US$60m sale of its 1.5Mt/yr grinding plant in Panipat to Shree Cement. It also sold its 74% stake in Bokaro Jaypee Cement Limited, a cement joint venture with the Steel Authority of India (SAIL) to Dalmia Cement for US$115m.