Argos Snaps Up Holcim Assets

Colombia’s Cementos Argos has acquired Holcim’s assets in Panama, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, St. Thomas, St. Maarten, Antigua and Dominica for $157m in cash, says Ricardo Sierra, Argos’ finance vice president. “We don’t require financing. We had already raised enough cash through divestments made early this year,” the official tells LatinFinance. He adds that the deal was handled in-house and that no external advisors were involved on its part. The price Argos is paying represents about 1.6x net 2008 sales. Holcim says that the assets had net sales of $98.4m in 2008. Tobias Woerner, an analyst at London-based MF Global says that what Argos is paying is “reasonable.” He adds that when Cemex sold its Australian assets to Holcim, the buyer paid 1.1x net sales. The deal marks the second time in only a week that a LatAm-based company has snapped up assets from a retreating foreign competitor, a trend that LatAm M&A specialists expect to continue. Last week, France’s Lafarge sold its Chilean cement, aggregates and concrete assets to Peru’s Brescia Group for $555m enterprise value, equal to 7.4x 2008 Ebitda. Chile-based analysts say the price paid for the package 84% owned by Lafarge Chile was fair to cheap.