The open offers for Ambuja Cements and ACC Cement shareholders will begin on 6 July and close on 19 July. With an investment of Rs 31,139 crore, these two open offers might constitute the biggest ever open offer in India.
The open offer was made by a Mauritius based company owned by the Adani Group after acquiring a 63% stake in Ambuja Cement and 4.5% in ACC Cement from Holcim for $6.5 billion. Ambuja Cement owns a 50% stake in ACC. The entire acquisition will cost the Adani around Rs 81,000 crore. Adani's open offers would pip Unilever's open offer in 2013. Unilever had announced a Rs 29,220 crore open offer to acquire 487 million shares of Hindustan Unilever, to increase its stake by about 22%. Endeavour Trade and Investment will buy up to 516 million shares, with 26% of the share capital of Ambuja Cement, at Rs 385 per share, totalling Rs 19,879 crore. Adani had offered to buy a 26% stake of ACC at Rs 2,300 per share for Rs 11,259 crore. The transactions will be subject to getting approvals from various regulators, including the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and the Competition Commission of India (CCI). Adani has opened an escrow account with Barclays Bank in Mumbai and made a cash deposit to fund both offers. Currently, Ambuja and ACC have a combined installed production capacity of 70 million tonnes per annum (mtpa), including 23 cement plants, 14 grinding stations, 80 ready-mix concrete plants, and over 50,000 channel partners pan India. After the acquisition, Adani will become the second-biggest cement maker in India after Ultratech Cement. Image Source
