European cement giants Holcim and Lafarge have broken a deadlock that threatened their merger plans, they said on Friday, expressing confidence that they
would close the $46-billion deal this summer.
The companies said they had revised the terms to satisfy Holcim shareholders and agreed that Bruno Lafont would step aside and another Lafarge executive would be CEO after the merger was finalised.
The combination of Holcim, based in Jona, Switzerland, and Lafarge, based in Paris, would form the world’s largest cement and construction materials company. They had joint sales last year of around $33 billion and a total of about 131,000 employees worldwide.
Lafont and the Holcim chairman, Wolfgang Reitzle, will serve as nonexecutive co-chairmen of the combined entity’s board.
“Certain key shareholders of both companies have confirmed their support for the revised merger terms,” the companies said in the statement.
“The parties expect the transaction to close in July 2015.”
With the thorniest issues out of the way, the combination requires regulatory approval in countries including the United States.
