Displaying items by tag: India

India/Oman: UltraTech Cement Middle East Investments, a wholly owned subsidiary of India's UltraTech Cement, has acquired a majority stake (51%) in Omani gypsum mining firm Awam Minerals LLC.

Awam Minerals has a license to mine substantial gypsum deposits in the south of Oman. It's gypsum mining license will serve as a captive mine for the network of cement plants owned by UltraTech Cement in India, two grinding units and a cement plant in the UAE, as well as a grinding unit in Bahrain through its Middle East subsidiary.

India: UltraTech Cement has appointed Atul Daga as Chief Financial Officer of the company in place of KC Birla with effect from 1 December 2014. The decision was made at a board of directors meeting on 18 October 2014. The term of appointment of the managing director OP Puranmalka was extended for a period of one year until 31 March 2016.

India: The Aditya Birla Group has submitted bids to purchase global assets being divested from the LafargeHolcim merger. UltraTech and other companies that belong to Birla have put in bids for cement units of Lafarge and Holcim in Brazil and the Philippines at an enterprise value of US$1.4bn. The group had identified Brazil as a major place for expansion three years ago. The Philippines was among the overseas countries where the group started operations several years ago.

Birla is competing with rival cement companies and private equity funds for the units. Germany's HeidelbergCement has teamed up with Votorantim Cimentos of Brazil while Cemex has joined hands with CRH plc. Eurocement is also in the race. Birla's move is part of its overall plan to increase its cement capacity to 70Mt/yr by early 2016 from 63Mt/yr currently.

Over 50% of Birla's revenues come from its overseas operations. According to a consultant involved with the deal, Birla will be unable to bid for LafargeHolcim assets in some of the market, including India, as a purchase will lead to monopoly in those markets.

India: Sagar Cements has received final approval for the acquisition of the 100% equity stake in BMM Cements, which owns a 1Mt/yr capacity cement plant and a 25MW captive thermal power plant in Gudipadu, Andhra Pradesh.

India: UltraTech has reported a higher net profit in the second quarter of fiscal 2015, on a standalone and consolidated basis, off the back of increased sales. Second-quarter standalone net profit grew by 55% to US$66.9m compared to US$43.1m in the second quarter of 2014. Quarterly net sales stood at US$878m, 20% higher than US$735m in the prior year quarter.

"During the quarter, domestic cement sales volumes increased by 11% on the back of higher demand and additional volume from the acquired units in Gujarat," said UltraTech. "Costs were impacted mainly on account of increase in prices of petcoke, input material and royalty on limestone."

For the first half of 2015, the company's net profit was US$169m, up by 11% from US$153m in the corresponding period of 2014. Net sales and other operating income rose by 17% to US$1.81bn from US$1.56bn for the comparable period of 2014. The combined domestic cement and clinker sales were 10.4Mt, up by 12% from 9.22Mt in 2014, while white cement and wall care putty sales volumes amounted to 302,000t, up by 3% compared to 294,000t in the year-ago quarter.

India: Jaiprakash Associates Limited is selling its 2.1Mt/yr capacity split grinding plant at Bhilai, Chattisgarh to Shree Cements Limited for an enterprise value of US$293.
The deal is expected to be completed in October 2014.

Bhilai Jaypee Cement Limited is a joint venture between Jaiprakash Associates, which holds 74% stake in the unit and the Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), which holds 26%. The cement plant, which has revenues of US$130m/yr, has US$97.5m of debt. After adjusting for this, the equity value of the deal is US$179 – 195m.

India: Holcim and Lafarge have begun an internal process in India to identify the assets that must be divested to adhere to the requirements of India's competition regulator, the Competition Commission of India.

Both companies are running processes to identify the plants and operations that are not linked to their strategic global plans. The process will also look at consolidation of operations and processes, which will lead to strategic alignment of both the companies in India to create a future-ready organisation with uniform processes.

In India, Lafarge, which has around 5Mt/yr cement capacity, is dwarfed by Holcim with a capacity of 47Mt/yr through its subsidiary companies Ambuja Cement and Associated Cement Companies (ACC), cornering roughly 12% of the 350Mt/yr Indian cement market. Aditya Birla Group's UltraTech is India's largest cement maker with a 62Mt/yr capacity.

India: In response to local concerns over the open-filling of fly-ash, an NTPC-owned thermal power plant in Kahalgaon, Bihar will install bagging machines for its fly-ash production. The facility provides fly-ash to cement makers in the northeast and is setting up six packing machines filling a total of 4800bags/hr or 4000t/day. The facility had been warned by the pollution control board, which has asked NTPC to deposit US$16,243 as security against the prescribed environmental measures. The board has said that the plant will be closed if it continues to violate the 'norms' by open-filling the sacks.

India: UltraTech Cement Limited has appointed Sukanya Kripalu and Renuka Ramnath as additional independent directors with effect from 11 October 2014.

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.