Deal creates India’s second largest cement producer

Ambuja Cements, owned by Gautam Shantilal Adani, an Indian billionaire industrialist, has announced that it has acquired cement com­pany Sanghi Indus­tries in a US$600 million deal.

Adani’s Ambuja Cements, which his group bought last year from Switzer­land-based Holcim for US$10.5 billion, is acquir­ing 57% of the shares in Sanghi from its fam­ily own­ers, with the  com­pany val­ued at around US$600 million after tak­ing into account debt and liquid assets. The deal makes the company India’s second-biggest cement maker.

According to a report in the Financial Times, Adani is fund­ing the deal entirely through its own cash, as opposed to taking on debt to complete the deal. Sanghi has India’s largest plant for cement and clinker and pro­duces approximately 6 million tonnes of cement per year. 

“We are optim­istic about the acquis­i­tion by Ambuja Cements, recog­nising it as a mutu­ally bene­fi­cial oppor­tun­ity for both of the share­hold­ers,” said Ravi Sanghi, Sanghi Indus­tries’ chair and man­aging dir­ector.

India’s cement market is expected to increase due to Nar­en­dra Modi’s drive to improve infra­struc­ture.

Adani said it aimed to increase Sanghi’s pro­duc­tion to 15mn tonnes per year. Its cur­rent assets pro­duce 67.5mn tonnes a year, with a tar­get of 140mn tonnes by 2028.

The move marks the con­glom­er­ate’s return to acquis­i­tions fol­low­ing a report by US-based short seller Hinden­burg Research in Janu­ary. It accused Adani of fin­an­cial mis­con­duct and knocked approximately US$150 billion off the group’s total stock mar­ket value. Adani strongly denies the claims and its shares have recovered much of their losses.