Displaying items by tag: Brazil

Brazil: Holcim and Lafarge are actively negotiating an agreement with Brazil's anti-trust council, Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica (Cade), to gain approval for their merger.

The deal involves divestitures of 31% or 3.6Mt/yr of Lafarge and Holcim's joint cement production capacity in Brazil. The assets could be sold to single company or several bidders. Holcim is still bound to pay Cade a US$197m fine that was imposed due to cartel practices. Lafarge paid US$16.7m to Cade in 2007 to end the investigation into its practices.

Egypt/Brazil: Egypt's Arabian Cement has entered a joint venture for a cement grinding plant with Brazil's Cementos La Union. The project is worth US$28.8m.

Arabian Cement's board of directors approved the venture with Cementos Relampago, an affiliate of Cementos La Union, 'to establish a cement grinding plant in Northwest Brazil with a total capacity of 230,000t/yr.' The US$28.8m investment cost will be financed 50% through debt and equity. Arabian Cement's contribution would be US$8.76m, representing 60% of the total paid-in capital.

Brazil: Provale, a manufacturer of calcium carbonate, plans to enter the well and white cement markets. It is setting up a 190,000t/yr capacity cement grinding plant at Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, Esprito Santo. Provale is currently waiting for environmental clearance to start ground breaking in a 50,000m² area. US$4m of the project funding is coming from the US private equity company, Resource Capital Funds, which has bought a 22% stake in Provale. President Emilio Nemer Neto said that talks with a prospective partner in Europe for the acquisition of clinker are underway.

India/Brazil: UltraTech Cement, India's largest cement producer, intends to bid for assets owned by Lafarge in the south-eastern region of Brazil, according to Indian press. If the bid is successful it will be the company's largest overseas deal to date. The Aditya Birla Group company currently holds small assets in west Asia.

The Brazilian assets on sale include three integrated cement plants and two grinding stations with a total capacity of 3.6Mt/yr, as well as one ready-mix plant. The Lafarge assets are on sale as part of the divestment plant following the announcement of the LafargeHolcim merger.

UltraTech has an installed cement production capacity of 62Mt/yr. It has 12 integrated plants, one clinker plant, 16 grinding units and six bulk terminals with operations across India, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Colombia: Directors at Cementos Argos have given the green light for an ordinary bond issuance of up to US$495m to be used as working capital and to swap financial liabilities. The company will have three years to carry out the issuance, although it will most likely do so in the coming months.

Previous issuances by Cementos Argos, such as those carried out in 2012 to raise US$495m, have helped the firm expand in Colombia, Latin America and the United States. Argos revealed in August 2014 that it is considering buying Holcim and Lafarge assets in the region, particularly Mexico and Brazil, and has announced that it will also build a US$450m plant.

Ireland: Ireland-based building materials group CRH will sell its clay brickwork division for up to Euro760m in order to bid for cement assets that are to be sold as part of the LafargeHolcim mega-merger. London-based sources have said that the Dublin-based company had hired bankers from JP Morgan to find a buyer for the division.

CRH is believed to be interested in all of the assets Lafarge and Holcim have up for sale, including subsidiaries in Canada and Brazil. LafargeTarmac, the largest cement maker in the neighbouring UK, is also up for sale as part of the LafargeHolcim divestment package. There are Euro5bn of assets for sale in total.

The disposal could be one of the first big changes by CRH's new chief executive, Albert Manifold. He was promoted in January 2014 after the retirement of Myles Lee, who had spent 32 years at the company. Several private equity firms are thought to be interested in the clay brick division. Bankers said that it was likely to fetch Euro630-760m.

Brazil/UK: Lafarge Tarmac, the UK's largest cement firm, may be bought by the Latin American conglomerate Votorantim. The mooted deal comes as giant cement firms Lafarge of France and Holcim of Switzerland sell off assets as they pursue their merger, announced in April 2014.

Colombia/Brazil: Colombia's Cementos Argos, part of Grupo Argos, is reportedly assessing assets worth US$1bn that Lafarge and Holcim will be forced to sell in Brazil as part of their planned merger.

Argos, which is working closely with Banco Itau BBA in terms of potential Lafarge-Holcim acquisition deals in Brazil, aims to grow organically and via acquisitions across the Americas. The firm wants to have a presence in markets where there is potential for cement consumption per capita to grow. Cementos Argos already operates nine cement plants in Colombia, three in the United States and one in Honduras.

Brazil: Apodi, owned by entrepreneurs Ivens Dias Branco (68%) and Juscelino Sarkis (32%), is to invest US$444m to set up a cement plant in the Brazilian state of Sergipe. It reportedly anticipates that the move will reinforce its stronghold in the north east of the country.

The new unit will have capacity for 5000t/day, adding to Apodi's two plants in Pecem and Quixada, Ceara state and expanding the company capacity to 10,000t/day in total.

South America: Brazilian conglomerate Votorantim has teamed up with Spanish company Cementos Molins to expand their cement businesses in Latin America through newly formed cement company Yacuces.

Votorantim will have a 51% stake in the joint venture. The agreement involves the purchase of 66.7% of Bolivian cement company Itacamba for US$18.6m by Yacuces.

According to a statement filed with Spain's capital markets regulating commission CNVM, Itacamba has plans to invest around US$220m in the next two years to build a cement factory. Votorantim and Molins already have business partnerships in Argentina and Uruguay through cement companies Cementos Avellaneda and Cementos Artigas.