{"id":6840,"date":"2012-01-09T08:28:41","date_gmt":"2012-01-09T06:28:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/01\/indias-av-birla-group-eyes-lafarge-south-africa-arm-report\/"},"modified":"2012-01-09T08:28:41","modified_gmt":"2012-01-09T06:28:41","slug":"indias-av-birla-group-eyes-lafarge-south-africa-arm-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/indias-av-birla-group-eyes-lafarge-south-africa-arm-report\/","title":{"rendered":"India&#8217;s AV Birla Group eyes Lafarge South Africa arm- report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocatio\/spann\">Jan 9 (Reuters) &#8211; India&#8217;s Aditya Birla Group is<br \/>\nevaluating a possible buyout of the South Africa operations of<br \/>\nFrance&#8217;s Lafarge SA, the world&#8217;s largest cement<br \/>\ncompany, the Business Standard newspaper reported on Monday,<br \/>\nciting unnamed sources.<span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The $35 billion telecoms-to-cement conglomerate, whose<br \/>\nUltratech Ltd is India&#8217;s biggest cement producer, is<br \/>\nconducting initial assessment for a possible bid for the Lafarge<br \/>\nunit, the report said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The enterprise value, which comprises both equity and debt,<br \/>\nof Lafarge&#8217;s South African arm, may be close to $800-900<br \/>\nmillion, the report said, quoting the sources.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Lafarge South Africa Holding has an annual cement capacity<br \/>\nof over three million tonnes and operates 20 quarries and 55<br \/>\nready-mix concrete plants. Lafarge is seeking 700-800 million<br \/>\neuros ($0.89-$1.00 billion) for the unit, a report said last<br \/>\nmonth.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>A spokeswoman for the Aditya Birla Group, which also owns<br \/>\nHindalco Industries, India&#8217;s top aluminium producer,<br \/>\nand telecoms provider Idea Cellular, declined to<br \/>\ncomment on the report.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The group, one of the world&#8217;s ten biggest cement producers,<br \/>\noperates across 36 countries and has recently considered bids<br \/>\nfor overseas coal assets.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Lafarge was not reachable for comment by Reuters.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Another Indian company Shree Cement is also<br \/>\nbelieved to have shown interest in the asset, the report said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have initially shown some interest in the project but we<br \/>\nwould not like to comment on the present status,&#8221; an unnamed<br \/>\nsenior group official was reported as saying by the newspaper.<br \/>\n  ($1 = 0.7865 euros)\t<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Henry Foy in MUMBAI; Editing by Subhadip Sircar)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jan 9 (Reuters) &#8211; India&#8217;s Aditya Birla Group is evaluating a possible buyout of the South Africa operations of France&#8217;s Lafarge SA, the world&#8217;s largest cement company, the Business Standard newspaper reported on Monday, citing unnamed sources. The $35 billion telecoms-to-cement conglomerate, whose Ultratech Ltd is India&#8217;s biggest cement producer, is conducting initial assessment for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-6840","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6840\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}