Swiss-owned Holcim to sell Hungarian subsidiary

Cement making giants Holcim and Lafarge are stepping up plans to shed assets in order to win clearance from competition regulators for their planned mega-merger, including possibly spinning them off into a new company.

Swiss firm Holcim says that the two companies are seconding one senior manager each to a committee responsible for divesting assets that would look at options including setting up a new business as well as outright sales.

Analysts have mostly assumed until now that the two companies wou

According to insiders, the merger of Swiss cement group Holcim and French industrial company Lafarge will probably be approved by the European Commission.

However, it is reported that it could be possible that the companies will have to sell one or two parts.

Holcim and Lafarge have already put some divisions up for sale in different countries amounting to several millions of Euro.

Holcim’s chief executive Bernard Fontana has said that the Swiss cement company and French group Lafarge have received more than 100 expressions of interest in assets they are planning to sell ahead of their planned merger.

The two companies proposed a multi-billion euro series of asset sales two weeks ago in their efforts to get regulatory approval for the planned merger, unveiled in April. This would create a combined group with €33 billion(US$44 billion) in annual sales.

According to a Reuters’ rep

HeidelbergCement has confirmed it will not buy any of the businesses that must be sold off as part of its rivals' merger.

In a brief statement, the German company told its shareholders it had now stopped looking at the assets being put on the block by its rivals, as it wanted to fortify its balance sheet and put cash into its own projects instead.

Given the importance of cement to developing economies - and Lafarge and Holcim's dominant positions in the market - their merger has come under enormous sc