Brazilian InterCement to sell Cimpor’s branches in Portugal and Cape Verde for €700m

  • ECO News
  • 26 October 2018

InterCement bought Cimpor in 2012, and it is now selling the Portuguese and Cape Verdian branches of the company to a Turkish company. The qualified competition authorities need to approve it.

InterCEment bought Cimpor in 2012, and it has now decided to sell the Portuguese and Cape Verdian branches of the company, to OYAK Cement. The sale comes in line with a strategy of reduction of the Brazilian company’s debt, and it also is trying to face the adversities observed in the South American markets, especially in Brazil.

Camargo Corrêa, the construction company controlling InterCement, had been trying to dispose of some of its assets in many countries, including Portugal so that they could reduce their high debt levels. The group even considered a return of Cimpor to the stock exchange but decided otherwise.

This Friday, the group announced the contract between InterCement/Cimpor and the Turkish Group OYAK, in which they “sell all the company’s assets in Portugal and Cape Verd”.

The values of the operation were not revealed, but both companies announced in a note, that the transaction contemplates the maintenance costs of the human resources of these companies”. Reuters news agency, quoting unknown sources, said that the business might have given InterCement “around €700m”.

Camargo Corrêa invested around €1.5bn in 2012 to become the main shareholder of Cimpor, controlling 95% of the Portuguese cement company, and in 2017 Cimpor registered almost €500m in losses.

The new investor, OYAK, is currently employing around 30 thousand people in 19 countries, and it registered a €10.2 bn turnover in 2017. The company has a quite diversified portfolio of activities, going from the cement and concrete industry to mining, metalworking, cars, energy production and chemicals, and even the financial and logistics sectors.

Its subsidiary, OYAK Cement, has seven integrated factories in total, and three cement millings, with an annual capacity for producing 12 tonnes per year.

The transaction is not official before the qualified competition authorities formally approve it.