Displaying items by tag: Blackstone Group

Ireland: CRH has agreed to sell its Europe Distribution business to private equity funds managed by Blackstone for Euro1.64bn. The business comprises CRH’s entire General Builders Merchants business in Europe, including its Sanitary Heating and Plumbing business. It supplies building materials to professional builders, specialist contractors and DIY customers through a network of local and regional brands across six countries in Western Europe. The divestment follows a strategic review of the business in 2019. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval.

India: Private equity companies Blackstone Group and Temasek Holdings are holding separate negotiations to buy up to a 20% stake in Wonder Cement for around US$136m. The investment is expected to allow the cement producer to expand its production capacity to 11Mt/yr from 6.75Mt/yr at present, according to the Economic Times newspaper. Wonder Cement, part of the Rajasthan-headquartered RK Group, announced in August 2018 that it was preparing to set up a 2Mt/yr clinker grinding unit in Dhule, Maharashtra.

Germany: Schenck Process has appointed Keith Cochrane as chairman and Harry Kenyon-Slaney as a member of its Advisory Board. The appointments follow the completion of Blackstone’s acquisition of the measuring and process technology equipment company.

Cochrane is currently the interim chief executive officer (CEO) of Carillion, prior to which he served as the CEO of the Weir Group, a manufacturer of highly-engineered products and services for the minerals, oil and gas and power industries. He joined Weir as Finance Director in July 2006 and was appointed CEO in November 2009. In 2015, Cochrane was appointed as the UK Government’s Lead Non-Executive Director for the Scotland Office and Office of the Advocate General. He is a Chartered Accountant and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. Cochrane was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and appointed CBE in 2016.

Kenyon-Slaney is currently Non-Executive Chairman at Gem Diamonds having been appointed in June 2017. He holds over 33 years of experience in the mining industry, principally with Rio Tinto. Until 2015, Kenyon-Slaney was a member of the Group Executive committee of Rio Tinto where he held the roles of CEO of Energy, and before that CEO of Diamonds and Minerals. Kenyon-Slaney also serves as a senior advisor to McKinsey & Co.

In addition, Lionel Assant, Juergen Pinker and Saleh Panahi, all of Blackstone, have been appointed to the Advisory Board.

Germany: Private equity company Blackstone has agreed to buy Schenck Process from IK Investment Partners. No further details, including the cost of the transaction, have been disclosed.

“Schenck is an innovative and unrivalled leader, and we see considerable opportunity to grow the business both organically and by acquisitions in its various end markets. We are excited to team up with management and accompany Schenck in the next stage of its development,” said Lionel Assant, Head of European Private Equity at Blackstone.

Detlef Dinsel, Partner at IK Investment Partners and advisor to the IK 2007 Fund said that Schenck had, “…transformed its business focus from a mechanical manufacturer to a service and integrated solutions provider, achieved significant growth by expanding the product portfolio and entering new markets both organically and through selected add-on acquisitions.”

Schenck develops and manufactures solutions for a wide range of industrial processes including weighing, feeding, conveying and filtration. With over 2300 employees worldwide and significant operations across Europe, North and South America, China, India and Australia, Schenck serves a diversified customer base across a variety of industries, including food, chemicals, mining and construction.

India: Six foreign and domestic cement companies, along with one private equity firm, have expressed interest in buying the assets that Lafarge is divesting in India before it closes its merger with Holcim. The bids were in excess of US$627m.

The deadline for submitting non-binding bids for the assets expired on 16 May 2015. Ahead of that deadline, local media reported that bids came from Shree Cement, Chettinad Cement, HeidelbergCement India, The Ramco Cements, CRH and Blackstone Group.

As a precondition to clearing Indian leg of the LafargeHolcim, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) directed Lafarge to sell two of its assets in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. These are a cement plant at Sonadih, Chhattisgarh and a grinding plant at Jojobera, Jharkhand, with a total capacity of approximately 5Mt/yr. In its directions, the CCI said that Lafarge should sell its assets 'to relatively smaller players, having an installed capacity of less than 5% of their total capacity in the relevant geographic market.'

With the non-binding bids in, Lafarge is likely to shortlist bidders by the middle of June 2015. The deal is likely to be concluded in July 2015.