Displaying items by tag: ACC

India: The board of directors of ACC Ltd has appointed Harish Badami as CEO and managing director (MD) designate with effect from 1 August 2014. Badami will assume responsibility as CEO and MD of the company for a period of five years. He will succeed Kuldip Kaura.

"With the Jamul cement plant (in Chhattisgarh State) expansion coming on stream in 2015, ACC is now well poised to serve the Indian market which is on the threshold of rapid growth," said Kaura.

"At this juncture, with the economy showing positive signs, I look forward to the exciting opportunity to participate in its growth," said Badami.

India: ACC Cement plans to invest US$499m to modernise its Jamul facility in Chhattisgarh and to add a grinding unit of 1.5Mt/yr capacity in its Jharkhand-based unit, according to ACC sales director C Kurian. ACC aims to decommission the existing plant at Jamul and set up a new technology-based cement plant with a 4Mt/yr production capacity. Kurian added that the Holcim-owned company is likely to finish the work by the second quarter of 2015.

ACC currently has a production capacity of 6Mt/yr but plans to raise it to 10Mt/yr by 2016. It has six plants and holds a market share of 12% in India.

India: Switzerland-based Holcim, the parent company of ACC and Ambuja Cements, will continue to retain its separate brands in India after its merger with Lafarge.

The management of ACC announced that there would be no impact to the existing brands post-merger. "The merger will be beneficial for the Indian cement industry and is expected to bring positive changes for the company," said the chairman of ACC, N S Sekhsaria. "ACC brand will remain intact after the merger of Holcim and Lafarge."

The merger is expected to take up to 18 months and Holcim's future plans in India will be known only after the merger is completed. Sekhsaria added that while the brands will be retained, there may be some rationalisation of operations.

India: ACC's net income has fallen slightly to US$1.75bn in 2013. However its net profit rose by 3% to US$174m. By business segment, cement sales fell slightly to US$1.71bn in 2013. The Indian cement producer made the announcement in a statement of consolidated audited financial results. In its statement ACC made no provision for a US$180m fine imposed on it by the Competition Commission of India for alleged cartel-like behaviour as it believes it can successfully appeal the penalty.

India: ACC has commissioned a cement blending unit at Padubidri in Udupi district.

An ACC company spokesman said that the unit uses fly-ash from the thermal power plant of Udupi Power Corporation in Udupi. The unit is capable of blending 30,000t/month of cement. Clinker from ACC's plant at Wadi in Gulbarga district is used for cement production at the blending unit in Udupi district. The Udupi plant caters to the cement requirements of Karnataka and Kerala states.

India: Ambuja Cements and ACC, the Indian arms of Holcim, are likely to see top-level management changes in the coming months. Managing director (MD) of Ambuja Cements, Onne van der Weijde and MD of ACC, Kuldip Kaura, have offered to resign, according to industry sources. Additionally, the sources revealed that Sumit Banerjee, the former MD of ACC who had quit to join Reliance Cement, is likely to re-join ACC as the MD.

The management changes at ACC and Ambuja Cements have resulted from restructuring of the parent company, Holcim, which has been underway since July 2013. Holcim has appointed Bernard Terver as the head of Asia, replacing Paul Hugentobler, who retired in February 2014. Terver, a member of the Holcim Executive Committee, has been appointed to head of a region that encompasses Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent.

While van der Weijde is said to be unhappy with these management changes, Kaura is said to have been uncomfortable with the new structure, in which ACC will become a subsidiary of Ambuja Cements. Under the restructuring programme, an India management committee that is headed by van der Weijde, was to oversee the integration between the operations of Ambuja and ACC. The two MDs of Ambuja and ACC had to report to van der Weijde, which did not go down well with Kaura, according to unnamed sources. However, it's unlikely that Holcim will take any decision in haste, especially before the restructuring is approved by the Gujarat High Court, which is expected by April 2014.

Only after the court approval can Holcim receive full approval from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), as currently it is only a conditional approval that is subject to legal clearances. Any management change at this juncture will lead to a lot of questioning, which will put the spotlight back on the entire process.

India: Jammu police, acting on a tip-off, seized 169 bags of low quality cement from a cement shop. The cement was labelled as Ambuja and ACC Cement.

"The cement dealer was selling low quality cement as Ambuja and ACC Cement to make a profit," police said. The dealer, Subhash Chander and shop worker, Vijay Kumar, were both arrested. Investigations are on-going.

India: Holcim Group, which is under the process of restructuring its holdings in India, has appointed Bernard Terver as additional director on the board of ACC and Ambuja Cements with effect from 4 December 2013.

Terver graduated from Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, in 1976 and has worked in the cement industry for more than 35 years. He has been in the service of Holcim since 1994, holding senior positions including that of CEO of Holcim Colombia and Holcim US.

The board also re-appointed Kuldip Kaura as the CEO and MD for one year with effect from 1 January 2014.

India: Following the successful vote to re-structure Holcim's India operations, Ambuja Cements and ACC, the integration of common functions across the two companies has begun.

Holcim wants to eradicate the duplication of roles across the two companies that will aid in savings of US$144m through synergies in supply chain and fixed cost optimisation. The integration will see big changes for some of the two companys' 10,000 employees. Some will be relocated to the group's upcoming facilities as the cement makers have no plans to cut spending.

"The restructuring is about deriving further value from the Indian platform," said Anantharam Gopalkrishnan, vice president for the treasury and tax at Ambuja Cements.

Holcim intends to keep the two brands, Ambuja Cement and ACC, independent. It does not plan to launch the Holcim brand in India or market the two brands with the Holcim tag. When the integration process is completed, which is currently scheduled for 2015, Holcim intends to evaluate the full merger of the operating companies into one unified entity.

India: Ambuja Cements announced on 21 November 2013 that shareholders had approved a proposal by Swiss parent firm Holcim to rejig its Indian cement units, winning 377m of the 550m votes placed (68.5%). 173m votes were placed against the merger.

The resolution for the scheme of amalgamation between Holcim India and Ambuja Cements was passed through postal ballots with the majority of public shareholders voting in favour.

Holcim had proposed in July 2013 the restructuring of its Indian operations by merging subsidiary Holcim India with Ambuja Cements and transferring Holcim India's 50.01% stake in ACC to Ambuja, making it a holding company of ACC. Holcim now has a 61.4% stake in Ambuja.

Public institutional holders, which hold 614m shares in the company, cast 534m votes. Of them, 67.9% voted in favour and 32.0% against the merger. Other public holders cast 15.4m votes. Of these, 13.6m were in favour and 1.80m were against.

As per the new regulation of the market regulator SEBI, companies require approval from the majority of the minority shareholders for mergers and acquisitions.

Holcim claims that this transaction will further improve its holding structure in India, strengthen the platform for future growth and generate synergy benefits of US$144m/yr. "These benefits, which will be realised in a phased manner over two years, will be shared by both companies equally through supply chain," said Bernard Fontana, CEO of Holcim.