Lafarge India is looking for mergers and acquisitions to increase its market shares. Lafarge entered India by acquiring Tata Steel’s cement business, followed by Raymond Cement facility in 2001, and acquired Larsen & Toubro’s ready-mix concrete business in 2008. Lafarge India may acquire Chennai-headquartered Madras Cements’ grinding unit in West Bengal. Lafarge is in serious negotiation to acquire Meghalaya-based Cement Manufacturing Company Ltd (CMCL), which sells cement under ‘Star Cement’ brand. Lafarge India plans to purchase a majority stake in CMCL. Meanwhile, CMCL is setting up a new 1.75 million tonnes (mt) fresh clinker capacity at Lumshnong in Meghalaya through its subsidiary Star Meghalaya Cement Ltd. It is also setting up a clinker grinding unit of 1.6 mt at Guwahati in Assam. It has planned to build a new 1.6 mt grinding facility at Kahalgaon in Bihar. All these would take the cement capacity of CMCL to 4.4 mt from the current 1.2 mt a year at an investment of Rs 1,100 crore. "We have planned to mop up additional resources worth between Rs 150 crore and Rs 200 crore through placement of CMCL shares to a private equity firm for these projects. The balance amount would be funded through our internal accruals," said Sajjan Bhajanka, managing director, Century Plyboards.