Ireland’s largest company is to take control of Lafarge Tarmac as part of a €6.5 billion deal for the cast-offs of the cement mega-merger between Lafarge and Holcim.
CRH, the FTSE 100 building materials company, revealed yesterday that it had entered into a “binding commitment” to buy assets that Holcim and Lafarge were selling to appease European competition authorities.
The Dublin-based company is paying for the deal with new debt, its own cash and by placing new shares worth nearly 10 per cent of its market value with financial institutions. The deal will carry CRH, which has a market capitalisation of £11.5 billion, into new markets, likely to include France, Germany, Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic, as well as handing it control of Lafarge