L&T has received several bid offers from Indian and overseas companies for its ready-mix concrete (RMC) business.
The successful bidder would be announced shortly, according to sources.
Among the foreign companies are Holcim and Lafarge. Holcim already has Gujarat Ambuja Cement and ACC. Its RMC business is handled through ACC Concrete Ltd which is a 100 per cent subsidiary of ACC.
ACC Concrete, has less than half the number of RMC units than L&T and the L&T acquisition could well catapult Holcim to the number one position in the ready-mix business in the country. Lafarge would like a stake in L&T’s RMC business as it will give the company a footprint in the western and other parts of the country. L&T’s RMC business is worth over Rs 1,000 crore. The Aditya Birla group is also said to be interested in L&T’s business but this could not be confirmed.
Sources said that L&T is keen to sell off this business as it is a commodity business and does not synergise with its core businesses that are engineering, construction and technology.
It is not a natural fit with these, the source said. Company officials refused to comment as they were busy with the preparation of the annual results that are due out by the end of the month.
But the company is in the midst of restructuring the group into 12 verticals of which six have already been created.
These include engineering and construction, machinery and shipbuilding. The company had earlier sold its cement business to the Aditya Birla group which renamed it Ultratech Cement.
Among the other non-core businesses that L&T has sold are its bottle plant in Nasik and dairy equipment business.
Source: Howrah