Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas has advised Gautam Adani’s Ambuja Cement on its acquisition of Penna Cement Industries from its promoter group for 104 billion rupees ($1.24 billion). Penna and its promoters were represented by Tatva Legal, Hyderabad.
The acquisition comes amid a battle for control of India’s cement market with market-leading UltraTech Cement of Aditya Birla Group trying to fend off Adani’s Ambuja Cement and ACC brands. Both are looking at strategic deals to increase capacity and consolidate the market.
UltraTech acquired a majority stake in rival India Cements for $421 million in July, while Ambuja took over control of Sanghi Industries last year in a deal valued at $600 million.
Ambuja said the buyout of Penna Cement will help improve Adani's share by roughly eight percent in India's southern cement market. The deal came a few months after UltraTech bolstered its own hold in the region by buying Kesoram's cement assets.
CAM’s transaction team was led by partners Smruti Shah, Paridhi Adani and Anand Jayachandran, with support from principal associate Viraj Gami, senior associate-designate Utkarsh Mankad, and associates Arushi Bindal and Pauravi Kolhe.
CAM partners Lakshmi Prakash, Abe Abraham, Gyanendra Kumar, Monark Gahlot, Abhilash Pillai, Jinal Mehta, Emil Joseph, Ashish Jain, Ramanuj Kumar, and Aniket Singhania and their teams also assisted on the financing, real estate and due diligence aspects of the deal.
Tatva Legal, Hyderabad’s team was led by partner Basava Rao and comprised manager Asmita Murali, senior associate Dippyaman Bhattacharya, and associates Mahek Agarwal, and Anirudh Krishna.
