UltraTech Cement, India’s largest cement producer, has evinced interest in acquiring Kesoram Industries’ cement assets and commenced negotiations to acquire promoters’ stake in the firm.
Kesoram Industries – which has presence in cement, tyres and tubes, heavy chemicals and spun pipes – sells cement under the brand Birla Shakti.
According to the company’s website, it has two cement manufacturing plants – at Sedam, Karnataka (Vasavadatta Cement) and Basantnagar, Telangana (Kesoram Cement). It has a total production capacity of 10.75 million metric tonne.
It also offers consulting, research, trading and engineering, among other services.
“Discussions were on”, sources said, but declined to state whether this would culminate in a deal. Further details were not immediately available.
On Thursday, shares of Kesoram Industries, which rose 5% to Rs 123, closed up 5% at Rs 123.27, while that of UltraTech Cement closed down 1.75% at Rs 8,607.10.
This comes at a time when UltraTech Cement has been looking at expanding its production capacity.
Last month, UltraTech Cement received board approvals for a fresh investment of ₹13,000 crore to increase capacity by another 21.9 million tonnes per annum (MTPA). The capacity addition would be under the company’s third phase of expansion, which will be achieved by setting up four greenfield and four brownfield plants and four greenfield bulk terminals.
Following this, UltraTech will have capacities of 35.5 MTPA in South, 40.4 MTPA in East, 36.2 MTPA in North, 35.7 MTPA in Central and 33.8 MTPA in the West.
The commercial production from these new capacities is expected to go on stream in a phased manner from FY26 onwards and will catapult the company’s cement capacity to 187 MTPA.