India: Reliance Infrastructure plans to sell its cement business as part of plans to cut debt through the sale of non-core assets.

As many as 10 global companies have been sounded for a 100% stake of Reliance Cement, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Infrastructure. These include CRH, Cemex, HeidelbergCement, GE, Blackstone, Carlyle and KKR. Local companies JK Cement and Prism Cement may also be interested. Reliance Group has appointed Morgan Stanley as banker to scout for buyers for Reliance Cement.

The sale of the cement business is aimed at reducing debt by selling non-core assets. Reliance Infra's debt stood at around US$3.86bn on 31 March 2015. Reliance believes that the sale will help reduce its debt by 20 – 25%. It is looking at a valuation of US$769 – 922m for Reliance Cement, which has a cement production capacity of 5.6Mt/yr.

Reliance Cement started operations in 2007 and has plants in Maihar in Madhya Pradesh (2.8Mt/yr), Kundanganj in Uttar Pradesh (2.2Mt/yr) and Butibori in Maharashtra (500,000t/yr). It is also developing a 5Mt/yr greenfield plant at Wani in Maharashtra.