HeidelbergCement has entered into an agreement with the French building materials producer Saint Gobain for the sale of the maxit Group. The purchase price amounts to approx. EUR 2.125 billion. The confirmation of the transaction is subject only to approval by the competent competition authorities. With the sale of maxit, HeidelbergCement is consistently pursuing its strategy of focusing on the processing and refining of raw materials for its core products, cement and aggregates, and further downstream concrete activities. HeidelbergCement will use the proceeds from the transaction to help finance its acquisition of the British building materials producer, Hanson plc, which it is acquiring for EUR 11.5 billion.
Instead of a sale, HeidelbergCement had also considered an IPO of maxit, but decided in the end to sell maxit directly. A number of financial investors were also interested to acquire the company, but in the end HeidelbergCement decided to sell to a competitor.
maxit is the leading producer of dry mortar in Europe and of expanded clay products worldwide. The maxit Group employs around 5,130 persons across 107 sites in 30 countries and its turnover totalled some EUR 1.2 billion in the last business year.
Gleiss Lutz advised HeidelbergCement throughout the sales process and is also assisting in the takeover of Hanson. The Gleiss Lutz team was made up of Dr. Jan Bauer and Dr. Martin Schockenhoff (partners, both lead), Dr. Cornelia Topf, Dr. Martin Viciano Gofferje, Dr. Eric Wagner, Dr. Patrick Binzel, Martin Lembke, Verena Hügel, Dr. Cai Berg (all corporate/M&A), Dr. Stefanie Beinert (partner) and Dr. Alexander Werder (both tax), Dr. Helge Kortz (partner) and Dr. Kai Birke (both banking/finance), Dr. Stephan Aubel (partner) and Dr. Nils Wunderlich (both capital markets), Dr. Matthias Karl (partner), Dr. Christian Steinle and Dr. Marcus Mayer (all competition), Dr. Beate Erken (labour), Dr. Juliane Reichelt, Dr. Marco König, Dr. Roland Hartmannsberger (all administrative), Dr. Lutz Aye (IP/IT), Dr. Rudolf Rentsch (Czech Republic corporate/M&A) and Igor Augustinic (Slovak corporate/M&A).
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