By Shayndi Raice
Irish building materials company CRH PLC said it agreed to pay
EUR6.5 billion for assets from Lafarge SA and Holcim Ltd. that the
two cement companies must sell to win approval for their $40
billion merger.
CRH said the deal will be funded by cash, debt and a 9.99%
equity placing. An announcement with full details will be released
soon, the company added. A spokesman for Holcim also confirmed the
deal with CRH.
The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that CRH was close to
a deal to buy the assets, citing people familiar with the
matter.
CRH was vying for the assets in a close race in the past few
days with a private-equity consortium including Blackstone Group
LP, Cinven and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, people
familiar with the matter said.
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. The two companies announced their merger last April, and
said they hoped to close the deal in the first half of 2015.
To address competition concerns, the companies agreed to sell
assets that generate roughly EUR5 billion ($5.6 billion) in annual
revenue.
A variety of industry players and buyout firms participated in
the auction, with some 60 parties submitting bids for all or pieces
of the assets, which include cement plants. CRH didn't specify in
its statement which assets it will be buying, but people familiar
with the matter said it may sell some to a third party at a later
date.
John Revill contributed to this article.
Write to Shayndi Raice at shayndi.raice@wsj.com
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