Anglo American & Lafarge to sell UK assets to Mittal

The sale, to Indian steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, was a condition set by Britain's Competition Commission to allow the two firms to combine their building materials activities.

Lafarge and Anglo said on Friday they would sell a number of construction materials operations in Britain as well as Anglo unit Tarmac’s 50% interest in Midland Quarry Products, one of the UK’s main suppliers of hard rock and asphalts.

Nomura analysts said the deal could be seen as a positive for investors fretting over a potential rights issue at the Mittal family's debt-burdened flagship asset, ArcelorMittal , the world's largest steelmaker.

Spending $450 million on construction material assets now does not necessarily sound like someone who is thinking about imminently piling in a few billion dollars into his steel business as part of an equity raise, they said.

Anglo, refocusing on core mining activities, struggled for more than three years to find a buyer for Tarmac before agreeing last year to a joint venture with France-based Lafarge’s British cement, aggregates, concrete and asphalt businesses.