Following the spinning off of Chaparral Steel Company to its shareholders, Texas Industries is left with its cement operations in Texas and California and aggregates businesses in Texas and Louisiana is well as ready-mixed concrete operations. These are likely to be of interest to several international cement-based groups, so, by spinning off the steel business, Texas Industries has laid itself open to bids.  Some groups, such as Cemex, Holcim, HeidelbergCement and possibly also Buzzi Unicem, Vicat and Taiheiyo may encounter monopolies problems.  Lafarge, having previously divested its operations in Texas may just not be interested. However, this still leaves a host of potential suitors such as Votorantim, Boral, Rinker and Italcementi.  Texas Industries is likely to prove too large for Titan, but private equity buyers could not be ruled out, that would eventually sell off the Californian and Texas operations separately.  For Boral, that has only recently started to build up a concrete and aggregates business in the United States, Texas Industries would give it critical mass in one go and provide a good fit with its existing US fly ash business.
Published under Cement News