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This week saw Lafarge and Holcim announce a list of proposed asset divestments following months of research by a Divestment Committee. The mass divestment is planned so that competition authorities around the world can approve the proposed Euro40bn merger of equals to produce LafargeHolcim. When the merger was initially proposed on 7 April 2014, Lafarge and Holcim estimated that some Euro5bn of asset disposals would be necessary and they are already well on their way.

Europe is facing the brunt of asset divestments, as this is where the companies have the largest market overlap. Holcim plans to sell all of its assets in Hungary and Serbia, while Lafarge will sell all of its assets in Germany, Romania and the UK (with one possible cement plant exception). In Austria, Lafarge has opted to divest its Mannersdorf cement plant, while in France it would sell its Reunion Island assets (excluding its shareholding in Ciments de Bourbon). Holcim plans to sell all of its assets in France except for its Altkirch cement plant and aggregates and ready-mix sites in the Alsace Region.

Elsewhere in the world, Holcim plans to sell all of its assets in Canada and Mauritius. In the Philippines the companies plan to combine the operations of Lafarge Republic Inc and Holcim Philippines Inc and to divest Lafarge's Bulacan, Norzagaray and Iligan plants. In Brazil, where Lafarge and Holcim both have a significant presence, the companies plan to announce their intentions after collaboration with CADE, the country's competition authority. There is little market overlap in most of Asia and the Middle East: Lafarge's assets in Malaysia and Syria complement Holcim's strong presence in India and Indonesia.

So far, Lafarge has consolidated its African operations by establishing Lafarge Africa and selling its assets in Ecuador. Holcim has been granted approval from the European Competition Commission to purchase Cemex West in Germany and, most recently, Lafarge has announced that it intends to buy out its joint venture partner, Anglo American, from Lafarge Tarmac in order to sell the entire business.

While the asset divestment list shows good will to global competition authorities, there remains no guarantee that Lafarge and Holcim will not need to divest even more assets. However, by nominating such a large number of divestments in the first instance, the companies have shown willing to cooperate with anti-monopoly measures, potentially easing the path of the LafargeHolcim mega-merger.

India: Reliance Infrastructure Ltd (R-Infra), part of Reliance Group, has named M S Mehta as chief executive officer (CEO) with effect from 7 July 2014. He will take over as CEO from Lalit Jalan, who held the portfolio for more than seven years.

Mehta was the Group CEO of Vedanta Resources Plc until recently, having held the position for five years. Prior to that, Mehta was the CEO of Hindustan Zinc Ltd. Mehta is a mechanical engineer and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

R-Infra is an infrastructure company developing projects, through various special purpose vehicles, in sectors such as roads, metro rail and cement. R-Infra also promoted Jalan as director (corporate strategy and affairs), saying that Jalan will steer future growth initiatives.

Brazil: The Foreign Trade Chamber (Camex) of the Brazilian Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade has approved anti-dumping measures against six countries: China, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE, Mexico and the US. The Camex has also added a 4% levy to cement imports.

Dumping is the commercial practice whereby a country exports products at lower prices than those charged domestically in order to cause problems to its competitors. Whenever the practice is confirmed via a probe, imports of the products at hand from the dumping country can be overtaxed. The right to apply anti-dumping duties may be granted permanently or temporarily. Provisional authorisations occur whenever probes uncover signs of dumping. They are valid for up to six months and may be converted into permanent authorisations. The latter occur following more thorough probes and are generally valid for up to five years.

The Camex approved the inclusion of six products on the Exception List to the Mercosur Common External Tariff (Letec). When a product is added, its import tax rate can be raised or lowered in relation to the rate applied by the Latin American block's countries. The rate for cement, which was formerly exempt, will now have a 4% rate levied.

Thailand: Siam Cement Group's subsidiary SCG Cement has acquired a 55% stake in Thai cement-bonded particleboard maker Panel World for US$17.2m. Panel World has an annual production capacity of 2.4Mm² and is set to double after a new production line starts operating by the end of 2014. Panel World posted a net profit of US$2.53m in 2013 on sales of US$9.81m.

"SCG is determined to increase its competitiveness and strive to be a market leader in building materials," said SCG's president and CEO Kan Trakulhoon.

Qatar: Four Qatari companies have shown interest in buying fly ash from Tata Power, which operates a 4000MW plant in Mundra, Gujarat, India. The plant consumes about 40,000t/day of imported coal and generates around 1600t/day of fly ash. Currently two cement makers in Gujarat and one from Rajasthan collect 100 – 200t/day of fly ash from the Mundra plant.

India: Chettinad Cement Corporation Ltd (CCCL) has recently purchased 20.58% of the shares of Anjani Portland Cement Ltd from shareholders for a price of US$1.03/share. CCCL announced its plans to acquire Anjani Portland Cement in March 2014. The purchase forms part of the company's strategy to increase its presence in the Andhra Pradesh market. Anjani Portland operates two plants in the Nalgonda district, Andhra Pradesh, with a production capacity of 1.2Mt/yr and plans are also in place for the construction of a greenfield cement plant in Karnataka.

India: Sagar Cements plans to sell its 47% stake in the joint venture company Vicat Sagar Cement to Vicat Group. Sagar Cement's board will consider the sale of its investment in the plant located at Chatrasal, Karnataka, at a meeting on 15 July 2014. Sagar Cements had invested US$14.3m in the first phase of the plant with 2.75Mt/yr capacity. Commercial production commenced in January 2013. France's Vicat is willing to acquire the stake to make Vicat Sagar Cement a completely-owned entity. Vicat is hoping to complete the entire transaction by September 2014.

South Africa: Costs relating to Sephaku Holdings' new cement business Sephaku Cement dragged the group to a loss in the year that ended in March 2014, though management has said that indications are positive for its cement venture.

Sephaku Holdings has a 36% share of Sephaku Cement, which in January 2014 completed the construction of two plants in North West Province and Mpumalanga. Nigeria's Dangote Cement is the majority shareholder in Sephaku Cement. Sephaku Holdings reported a post-tax loss of US$260,300 in the period under review, largely due to a loss from Sephaku Cement of US$1.37m.

Sephaku Holdings' latest results include little revenue from the cement business, as one of the plants began producing only in January 2014 and the other is due to begin production in July 2014. The South African cement market is currently oversupplied and is likely to remain that way for some time, but Sephaku and another newcomer, Mamba Cement, are banking on healthy demand growth and cost-efficiency advantages from their modern plants. Mamba has a plant under construction near Northam in Limpopo.

South Africa: Zambezi Portland Cement Limited has released a new cement product, Timange, which it said is suitable for the African climate.

"Zambezi Portland Cement Limited has announced another high quality cement, the Timange 32.5N Portland limestone cement," said sales and marketing manager, Isaac Ngoma. "This new product is a new generation 3-s formula product, a complete cement solution for the African climate as it requires less curing. This is a multi-purpose value addition cement with solid setting and rock strength. Timange cement has a super setting capacity with supreme sustainability."

"Good quality clinker is intermixed with limestone and gypsum while maintaining better particle size distribution to produce this low heat cement, which is ideal for road works, dams, plastering and other structural use," added Ngoma.

UK: Anglo American has announced that it plans to sell its equity in its joint venture project with Lafarge UK. Anglo American plans to use the proceeds of the sale to pay off debt.

Once it owns the entire firm, Lafarge plans to sell it to help it gain approval from competition regulators for its merger with Holcim. Lafarge and Holcim need to shed around Euro5bn in assets to persuade regulators to back the merger. Lafarge and Holcim's merger is expected to be completed in the first half of 2015.

"The sale will be subject to a number of conditions, including the completion of the Lafarge / Holcim merger, the divestment of Lafarge Tarmac being accepted as a suitable remedy, and approval of this sale transaction by the necessary regulators," said Anglo American.