Mumbai: Ultratech Cement chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla Thursday said the company will complete merger of Century Cement during the course of the second quarter of
the current fiscal, which will take its capacity to 117.35 million tone.
In May 2018, the Aditya Birla group announced a reorganisation of the cement business of the group firm Century Textiles’ cement business, under a scheme of demerger.
The deal, which has long been in the works involving Kumar Mangalam Birla and his grandfather BK Birla will give Utlratech market leadershipin all regional markets.
The reorganization will bring to Ultratech get ready ownership of 13.4 million capacity spread across MP, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra, helping the land-endowed Century focus more on its real estate business and pare debt of about Rs 3,000 crore.
“The merger of Century Cement will be completed during the second quarter of the current financial year,” Birla told the shareholders at the 19th AGM here.
Birla said, excluding China, Ultratech is already the third largest cement maker in the world and the merger of Century will further buttress this.
“After the completion of Century Cement transaction, coupled with the on-going capacity expansion, our capacity will be augmented to over 117.35 million tonne per annum, inclusive of its overseas operations,” he told shareholders.
The company has already got the approvals for this from the exchanges, the Competition Commission and the shareholders apart from the NCLT, he said, adding the transaction will be effective in the second quarter of FY20.
The only pending approval is for the transfer of mining leases, which should be in any time now, he said. “This transaction gives us an opportunity to strengthen our presence in the highly fragmented, but competitive and fast growing Eastern and Central markets. It will also extend our footprint in the Western and Southern markets,” Birla said.
Century’s cement business consists of three integrated units in MP, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra and a grinding unit in Bengal.
