Gautam Adani Offers To Acquire 26% Of Ambuja Cements, Acc From Open Market

The Adani group through its Mauritius-based subsidiary Endeavour Trade and Investment has made an open offer at ₹385 per share for Ambuja Cements Ltd and ₹2,300 per share for ACC Ltd.

For Ambuja Cements, Adani group has made an open offer to its public shareholders to acquire up to 51.63 crore equity shares, representing 26% of the expanded share capital, aggregating to a total consideration of ₹19,879.57 crore.

While for ACC Ltd, Adani group has offered to acquire up to 4.89 crore shares held by public shareholders, representing 26% of the expanded share capital, aggregating to a total consideration of ₹11,259.97 crore.

This would be “subject to the receipt of the Required Statutory Approval,” it said.

The public announcement was jointly issued by ICICI Securities and Deutsche Equities India, the joint managers to the open offer at bourses.

This open offer has been triggered following the execution of the share purchase agreement between the Adani group and Holchim to acquire controlling stake in the latter’s businesses in India “for an aggregate consideration of USD equivalent to ₹50,181.04 crore”.

Endeavour Trade and Investment is promoted by Acropolis Trade and Investment Ltd.

“The ultimate beneficial ownership of Acropolis Trade and Investment Ltd is held by certain members of the Adani family,” the notice said.

On Sunday, Adani group announced a deal to acquire a controlling stake in Holcim Ltd’s businesses in India for $ 10.5 billion ( ₹81,300 crore approximately) , marking the ports-to-energy conglomerate’s entry into the cement sector.

With this deal, the Adani group will become the country’s No. 2 cement manufacturer in its largest-ever acquisition.

Under the deal, the second biggest in India this year, Adani Group will pay $6.4 billion in cash to acquire Holcim’s 63.1% stake in Ambuja Cements Ltd and 54.5% holding in ACC Ltd. The rest of the companies’ shares will be bought via an open offer.

Adani Group, which currently has no cement-making operations, said the firms were a good fit given its ports and logistics, energy and real estate businesses.

“The Adani Family, through an offshore special purpose vehicle, announced that it had entered into definitive agreements for the acquisition of Switzerland-based Holcim Ltd’s entire stake in two of India’s leading cement companies – Ambuja Cements Ltd and ACC Ltd,” the group said in a statement.

Holcim in a statement had said, “The corresponding offer share prices of ₹385 for Ambuja Cement and ₹2,300 for ACC translate into cash proceeds of CHF 6.4 billion (Swiss Franc) for Holcim.”

The world’s largest cement maker Holcim last month announced its exit from the country after struggling here for a long.

At present, Ambuja Cements and ACC have a combined installed production capacity of 70 million tonnes per annum. 

The two firms together have 23 cement plants, 14 grinding stations, 80 ready-mix concrete plants and over 50,000 channel partners across the country.

Shares in Ambuja and ACC surged but were trading below the prices offered by Adani on Monday.

By midday, Ambuja’s stock was up 2.9% at 369.45 rupees compared with the offer price of 385 rupees. ACC’s shares jumped 3.6% to 2,190 rupees versus the offer price of 2,300 rupees.