Building materials group CRH will expand its eastern European operations into the Ukraine with the acquisition of the Dontsement cement company in Donetsk. In a separate development, CRH has expanded its business in Northern Ireland after agreeing terms with French giant Lafarge for its Tyrone Bricks operation in Dungannon.
CRH finance director Mr Harry Sheridan refused to comment on this latest expansion in eastern Europe, but the chairman of Dontsement, Mr Hryroriy Dehtiakreno, told the Ukrainian news website uatoday.net that the company will be sold to CRH in August.
Mr Diahrenko said the Donetsk arbitration court had approved a settlement between Dontsement's creditors and CRH. Under the terms of the settlement, investment company Ukrainiya JVC will buy a 75 per cent plus one share stake in Dontsement and then give this stake to CRH.
For its part, CRH will pay the Dontsement creditors about 30 million hyrvnia (#6.4 million) out of the total debt of 75 million hyrvnia within three months and will then gradually pay off the remainder. Dontsement went into bankruptcy last year and the cement plant has been shut down since May 2000.
CRH will initially invest about #6 million to upgrade the operation and small-scale production will resume next month. The plant's full capacity is 1.5 million tonnes of cement. CRH already has operations in Russia following its acquisition of the Finnish group Finncementti Rudus two years ago.
Meanwhile, it is understood CRH is one of four groups which have expressed interest in the privatisation of Poland's largest producer of lime and calcium products, Trzuskawica. Investors have been set a deadline of September 19th for bids for the 80 per cent of Trzuskawica that is on offer. CRH is already one of the biggest cement producers in Poland.
Mr Sheridan did confirm that CRH agreed terms with Lafarge for the acquisition of Tyrone Brick. He would not say how much CRH was paying other than commenting that Tyrone Brick was "very small" in the context of CRH's international operations. Tyrone Brick has been on the market since last October.
