Holcim Ltd, a Swiss building materials company, has agreed to sell its Indian operations to local billionaire Gautam Adani, Asia’s richest man, marking yet another step in CEO Jan Jenisch’s shift away from traditional cement.
Holcim said in a statement on Sunday that it will sell its 63 percent stake in Mumbai-listed Ambuja Cements Ltd to Adani Group. Adani stated that it intends to spend approximately $10.5 billion on stake purchases and open offer consideration for Ambuja and related entities.
Adani will inherit Ambuja’s controlling stake in ACC Ltd, a publicly traded cement producer, and will purchase Holcim’s direct 4.5 percent stake in the unit as part of the deal. According to the statement, Holcim expects to receive 6.4 billion Swiss francs ($6.4 billion) in cash from the sale.
“We have a long list of companies we’d like to buy,” Jenisch said in a Sunday interview. “We’re currently working on more than ten deals.”
Jenisch, who joined Holcim from Sika AG in 2017, has been selling non-core cement businesses and buying new construction companies to capitalise on the growing demand for energy efficient buildings. He has spent about $5 billion on acquisitions, including Malarkey Roofing Products in December and Firestone Building Products in early 2021, as part of his strategy to expand the so-called solutions and products division.
After the messy mega merger of Holcim and France’s Lafarge SA in 2015, the 55-year-old German has been cleaning up the company. Jenisch sold a $1 billion Brazilian unit in September and Asian businesses like Holcim Indonesia in 2019.
The sale of Holcim’s Indian business, which is subject to local regulatory approvals, is expected to close in the second half of 2022, aided by Adani’s lack of significant overlap. Following the roofing acquisitions, the company began looking for new asset sales over the last year, and Jenisch said that negotiations with a handful of potential Indian buyers took about three months.
