Adani Group Makes $3.9 Billion Open Offer for Two Cement Makers
Adani Group has received regulatory approval for a Rs 30,100 crore open offer to buy remaining shares of two Indian cement makers.
(Bloomberg) -- Adani Group has received regulatory approval for an almost 311.6 billion rupees ($3.9 billion) open offer to buy the remaining shares of two Indian cement makers, following Holcim Ltd.’s decision in May to sell its majority stake to the conglomerate.
The group, led by Asia’s richest person Gautam Adani, has offered to buy 26% of Ambuja Cements Ltd. for 385 rupees per share and the same stake for 2,300 rupees per share of ACC Ltd., according to two exchange filings filed Friday by ICICI Securities Ltd. and Deutsche Bank AG, which are advising Adani. The open offer for both the cement firms will run from Aug. 26 to Sep. 9, the filings said.
Bloomberg reported earlier in the day about the ports-to-power conglomerate getting a nod from Securities & Exchange Board of India for this open offer citing people familiar with the development. Shares for Ambuja and ACC pared their gains on Friday after Bloomberg’s story was published. They later recovered some ground to close the day 2.7% and 1.2% higher respectively.
Asia’s Richest Man Forges $10.5 Billion Deal With Holcim
Indian stock market rules say that acquiring 25% or more of the shares in a local listed firm will trigger a mandatory open offer where minority shareholders can choose to sell their stakes to the new investor at a predetermined price. Adani’s open offer price for Ambuja is at 6% discount compared to Thursday’s closing price while that for ACC is at a 1% discount, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
The deal was also cleared by India’s antitrust regulator last week.
The Holcim transaction is set to propel the Adani Group to become India’s second-largest cement producer virtually overnight in what’s an extremely fragmented and competitive market.
Holcim in May agreed to sell its 63% stake in Mumbai-listed Ambuja Cements to Adani Group, which said then that it plans to spend to spend about $10.5 billion on the stake purchases and open offer consideration for Ambuja and related entities.
As part of the deal, Adani will inherit Ambuja’s controlling stake in another publicly traded cement producer, ACC, and will buy Holcim’s direct 4.5% holding in the unit.
(Updates with announcements by the offer managers in the second paragraph.)
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