Sanghi: Adani back on deal street with Ambuja’s Sanghi buy

MUMBAI: In a sign that the group is back on deal street, billionaire Gautam Adani‘s Ambuja Cements is set to acquire Sanghi Industries, owned by first-generation entrepreneur Ravi Sanghi.

Ambuja will acquire a majority stake in Sanghi for an enterprise value of around Rs 5,000 crore, including debt, its first M&A since the publication of the Hindenburg report in January. Sanghi is one of the leading cement manufacturers from Gujarat with an annual production capacity of 6.1 million tons. It also has a 130MW captive thermal power plant, captive mines, and a port in Kutch. Promoters own 73% in Sanghi but almost the entire holding is pledged as on June 30. The company’s shares hit a 52-week high of Rs 101 on the BSE on Wednesday giving it a market capitalisation of Rs 2,602 crore.
The Sanghi acquisition will heft up Adani’s dominance in the building materials sector, after he bought Ambuja and its subsidiary ACC in September 2022 from Switzerland’s Holcim to become India’s second-largest cement maker with a production capacity of 70 million tons annually. Adani is behind UltraTech Cement, which is controlled by Kumar Mangalam Birla.

Adani previously said that he plans to double the cement-making capacity to 140 million tons by 2027. To achieve this target, he will have to buy more cement assets. It was reported previously that the Ahmedabad-based billionaire was eyeing Jaypee Group’s cement business but nothing progressed on that front.