NEW YORK CITY (dpa-AFX) - French cement giant Lafarge SA (LFGEF.PK, LFRGY.PK) and Holcim Ltd (HCMLY.PK) are nearing an agreement to sell at least $7 billion worth of assets to Ireland's CRH Plc. (CRH.L, CRH), Wall Street Journal reported citing people familiar with the matter.
Quoting the people, the report indicated that CRH was a finalist in an auction for the assets, vying in the past few days with a private-equity consortium including Blackstone Group LP, Cinven and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. The deal hasn't yet been completed, but CRH is now poised to win the auction. The acquisition could be announced by Monday, if it doesn't fall apart at the last minute.
The sale of the cement assets in Europe, Canada and elsewhere is a precondition of winning antitrust approval of the roughly $40 billion pending merger between France's Lafarge and Switzerland's Holcim.
On 22nd January, CRH Plc confirmed that it was in discussions with French cement giant Lafarge SA and Holcim Ltd. regarding the potential acquisition of certain assets being disposed of by Lafarge and Holcim in advance of their proposed merger.
In December 2014, The European Commission, the European Union's antitrust authority, said that it approved the proposed merger of French cement giant Lafarge SA with Swiss peer Holcim Ltd, subject to asset sales by both companies in regions where their activities overlap.
The European Commission or EC's approval of the merger was conditional upon the divestment of Lafarge's businesses in Germany Romania and the UK. Holcim was required to divest its operations in France, Hungary, Slovakia, Spain and the Czech Republic.
In April 2014, Holcim and Lafarge announced their plan to combine through an all share merger of equals to create LafargeHolcim, with nearly 32 billion euros in sales. The proposed combination would be structured as a public exchange offer initiated by Holcim for all outstanding shares of Lafarge on the basis of a 1 for 1 exchange ratio.
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