Sagar Cements’ board nod to acquire BMM Ltd

Hyderabad, September 27, 2014 – The board of directors of Hyderabad-based Sagar Cements Limited (SCL) on Thursday approved the company’s move to acquire 100 per cent stake inBMM Cements Limited, which owns a cement plant of 1-million tonne capacity among other assets in Andhra Pradesh.

The proposed acquisition will take SCL group’s total cement capacity to 3.75 million tonnes from the existing 2.75-million tonnes.

BMM has an enterprise value of Rs 540 crore and has limestone reserves of around 155 million tonnes apart from a captive power plant of 25 Mw capacity, according to a company release.

The deal size was not immediately known though the company will be taking over the debt on the books of BMM besides buying out the entire stake in the company from its promoters.

“The proposed acquisition of BMM Cements comes at an opportune time wherein the demand environment and pricing in our region of operations looks encouraging. The two companies are wholly complementary geographically with considerable potential for synergies,” Srikanth Reddy, executive director of Sagar Cement, said in a filing to the BSE on Thursday.

The company would explore both organic and inorganic opportunities to drive growth in the interest of shareholders, he said.

In July this year, SCL sold its entire 47 per cent stake in the joint-venture Vicat Sagar Cement Private Limited to its French partner at a total price of Rs 435 crore, over five times of its equity investment.

Following the exit from the JV, SCL zeroed in on BMM, whose plant and mines are located near Tadipatri in Anantapur district, as part of its strategy to have a manufacturing facility in Andhra Pradesh. Sagar Cements’ plant is located at Matampally in Nalgonda district of Telangana. Business Line