Lafarge India has submitted a revised proposal to the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to sell its entire 11-million tonne (mt) asset in India. This decision comes after the company?s plan to sell its 5.15-mt cement capacity in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand to Birla Corp. for Rs 5,000 crore ran into trouble. Investment bankers said the M P Birla Group was facing challenges in securing limestone mining rights.
Lafarge and Swiss cement giant Holcim after global merger in April 2014 to create the world?s largest cement company. This raised eyebrows of anti-trust watchdogs in several countries.
In India, Holcim, through its control of Ambuja Cement and ACC, has 60 mt of capacity. Lafarge, on the other hand, has a capacity of 11 mt in India, of which 7.8 mt (70 per cent) is in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and West Bengal. Holcim?s ACC and Ambuja have capacities of 6.1 mt and 4.6 mt, respectively, in India?s eastern region. A simple merger would have led to a capacity of 18.5 mt in the eastern states for Holcim-Lafarge, which would have been more than 40 per cent of the estimated 46 mt of total capacity in the region. This led to a scrutiny by the CCI.