Word has it that Philip Mengel, the chief executive who handed his Ibstock bricks business on a plate to CRH for a modest £435 million (#552 million), will move on once the takeover is completed and is shortlisted to take over as boss of the British plasterboard group BPB.
CRH and its assorted advisers have received justified plaudits for their quick-footedness in snatching Ibstock from under the noses of Austrian group, Wienerberger. The Ibstock management was fearful of the Austrian group using its 29.9 per cent of Ibstock to make a full bid and Philip Mengel was entrusted with the job of finding a white knight.
CRH - with a long-standing reputation for leaving the management of acquired companies in place to get on with the job - was an obvious target as a white knight for Ibstock. CRH made it clear it would only get involved in a bid for Ibstock if it could get control in a dawn raid.
Thus emerged one of the slickest pieces of raiding the London market ever saw when CRH - with the explicit support of Ibstock management - snapped up more than 50 per cent of the shares before Wienerberger could even respond - an extraordinary result. Philip Mengel was, by all accounts, a key player in the exercise. Now, he seems set to move on.
