Kumar Mangalam Birla News: Kumar Mangalam Birla may have missed out on Holcim deal but he isn’t ruing it

Aditya Birla Group chairman, Kumar Mangalam Birla, opened up on missing out on the Holcim deal but underlined that the largest cement maker, , isn’t short of options to grow.

“If you have other options where you can build assets at a much lower cost that obviously would be a preferred bet,” Birla said in an interview to CNBC TV 18 at Davos.

Birla said that the valuation for the Holcim deal was too steep at $10 billion and growing on its own seems to be a more economical option.

“It would have been nice to have, but you know, at a (reasonable) price. I think that if you have other options where you can build assets at much lower costs, that obviously would be a preferred bet,” Birla told CNBC.

Gautam Adani won the fight to buy Swiss cement giant Holcim’s interest in

and ACC with a decisive win.

On the CCI challenge to the deal had Ultratech managed to acquire it, Birla said, “There was a problem with CCI, but it is something that we understand well, and could have submitted a plan to push this scheme through.”

“We would have had to sell assets, if I remember it right, but I think essentially, it boiled down to the price.”

The Adani Group is acquiring the two companies for $10.5 billion. Holcim’s stake in the deal is worth $6.4 billion in net proceeds.

Ultratech is the current market leader in the cement business. Cement expert, Sanjay Ladiwala, feels that it would be tough to beat Ultratech in the cement business.

“At the same time, I do not think UltraTech is going to take it lying down. They also have plans and they have consistent plans. In the past, they have consistently grown over the years and that whole trend continues. So I do not think they are going to take it lying down. Henceforth, we will see quite a lot of competition amongst the two, but it is going to take quite some. I do not see it happening in five years,” Ladiwala told ET NOW.