Displaying items by tag: Sale

Brazil: Camargo Corrêa is conducting talks to sell its cement business InterCement for US$6.5bn. Two bids, including one by Mexico’s Cemex, have already been made according to the O Globo newspaper. The Brazilian conglomerate was reportedly selling a minority stake in InterCement in mid-2015 and in late-2015 its chief executive officer Vitor Hallack said it was prepared to sell its assets to cut its debts.

InterCement is the second largest cement producer in Brazil with a production capacity of 15Mt/yr and 12 integrated cement plants. The country as a whole saw its domestic sales of cement fell by 11.7% year-on-year to 57.2Mt in 2016 according to data from the Brazilian National Union of Cement Industry.

India: Babul Supriyo, the Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, has revealed that the government is planning to sell five plants in the first phase of its divestment of non-operational units of the Cement Corporation of India (CCI). In a letter to the Indian parliament he said that plants at Mandhar, Kurkunta, Bhatinda, Nayagaon and Charkhi Dadri would be sold first, according to the Press Trust of India. However, legal issues at Delhi Grinding Unit (DGU), Adilabad and Akaltaraneed need to be resolved before these plants can be sold. No value for the sale has been set yet as the plants have not been valued.

Germany: CRH has agreed to sell one integrated cement plant and one grinding plant in Germany to an unnamed party. These assets were purchased as part of a group of sites acquitted by CRH from LafargeHolcim in 2015. The transaction is subject to approval by the German Competition Authority (Bundeskartellamt). No exact value for the transaction has been released but the Irish building materials company has placed a sale including these assets and others including a clay business in Northern Europe and a concrete business in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg for Euro400m. CRH currently operates two integrated cement plants in Germany at Wössingen and Karsdorf.

Tunisia: Finance Minister Lamia Zribi has said that the Tunisian government has decided to sell its share in Carthage Cement. It owns an estimated 41% share of the cement producer, according to Tunis Afrique Presse. Zribi said that the decision was due to financial problems at the company as well as issues with production and export. Carthage Cement's chief executive Ibrahim Sanaa has blamed a rise in production costs on a poor construction market and production overcapacity.

South Korea: Six companies have made bids for Hyundai Cement. Ssangyong Cement Industrial, Halla Cement, IMM Private Equity, LK Investment Partners, Hyundai Sungwoo Holdings and PineStreet Group have submitted terms to acquire a 84.6% stake in Hyundai Cement, according to the Maeil Business Newspaper. Creditors and sales advisors of the cement producer intend to choose a preferred bidder before the end of February 2017. The sale is expected to raise up to US$525m.

Mexico: Cemex is selling a 15.6% stake in Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC). If all 51,750,000 shares of GCC are sold the cement producer will raise around US$240m in revenue before expenses. Following the sale Cemex will retain a 7.4% direct interest in GCC.

US: Cemex has completed the sale of its Fairborn cement plant in Ohio and a cement terminal in Columbus to Eagle Materials for US$400m. Cemex said proceeds from the sale will be used for debt reduction and general corporate purposes. Bank of America Merrill Lynch acted as financial advisor to the cement producer for the transaction.

India: The Ministry of Heavy Industries is planning to sell seven non-operational plants of the Cement Corporation of India (CCI) as part of the first phase of a scheme to sell the state-owned cement producer. However, due to on-going legal issues at some of the units the ministry wants to sell them in a piecemeal fashion or even individually, according to the Press Trust of India. The CCI operates 10 units of which seven are non-operational. The federal cabinet of India granted gave in-principle approval for the sale of certain state-owned companies in October 2016.

Argentina: Brazilian cement producer Camargo Corrêa is in talks to sell a 40% stake in Loma Negra. The company is exploring a potential sale with an unspecified number of bidders, according to Reuters and Brazil Journal. The proceeds of any successful sale will be used to reduce the debts of InterCement, the holding company that Camargo Corrêa uses to manage assets it purchased from Cimpor. Loma Nega is the largest cement producer in Argentina.

US: HeidelbergCement has completed the sale of its Martinsburg, West Virginia cement plant and eight related terminals to Cementos Argos. With the finalisation of the sale the group has now met all the obligations with regards to its acquisition of Italcementi.

“With the disposal of the US assets we fulfil the obligation of the Federal Trade Commission and improve the net financial position of HeidelbergCement after the acquisition of Italcementi,” said Bernd Scheifele, chief executive officer of HeidelbergCement.

HeidelbergCement and Cementos Argos announced the sale in August 2016. The transaction purchase price was US$660m on a cash and debt-free basis. The FTC approved the agreement in November 2016.