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Irish building materials giant CRH, which aims to buy the Ukrainian cement-making unit of Italy's Buzzi, must first agree to transfer a 25-28% stake in the unit to an independent investor, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) has said.
The €100 million purchase would give CRH, which already owns three plants in Ukraine under the Cemark brand, two more of the country's eight operating cement plants, with the ninth currently behind Russian lines.
Meanwhile, the exit of Buzzi, which is leaving Ukraine in order to continue doing business in Russia, would leave only CRH, Ivano Frankivsk Cement and Kryvi Rih Cement in the Ukrainian cement production market.
The sale of Buzzi's assets to CRH "can lead to monopolization or significant restriction of competition on the gray portland cement market as a whole," as well as in the markets for general construction cement and sulfate-resistant cement, the AMCU said on its website.
The authority is giving CRH nine months from the date of the purchase to transfer 25-28% of Dyckerhoff GmbH, the Buzzi unit, plus veto rights over "key management decisions," to an independent investor.
The most likely independent body to take the stake is the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Ukraine's largest foreign investor, which has discussed the possibility of joining the acquisition of the Buzzi assets with CRH.
The planned takeover comes ahead of an expected surge in demand for cement when the war eventually ends and the reconstruction of Ukraine begins in earnest. USAID has estimated Ukraine will need to produce 15-16 million metric tons of cement annually over a three-year reconstruction period, compared with the pre-war production of about 13 million metric tons.
