Reliance Infrastructure to dispose of cement biz

Expecting enterprise valuation of Rs 5,500 cr-Rs 6,000 cr for cement biz, 7 buyers shortlisted

Reliance Infrastructure (RInfra) on Wednesday said it would dispose of its cement business. It has short listed seven potential buyers from a total of 15 parties that had submitted preliminary expressions of interest. Promoters hope an enterprise valuation of Rs 5,500-6,000 crore for the business. The cement business, which has an annual production of capacity of 5.6 million tonnes, had incurred a loss of Rs 39 crore in the June quarter.

The company also plans to monetize its roads business. The roads business comprises 11 revenue-generating projects of about 1,000 km across seven states. The roads business has attracted preliminary interest from strategic and portfolio institutional investors in India and overseas.

The Decision to sell the cement business and monetise roads was taken at the meeting of the board of directors of RInfra on Wednesday. In its filing to national stock exchange and the BSE, the company said the due diligence process to sell the cement business had been commenced.

Reliance Cement is a fully-owned subsidiary of RInfra and has a total installed capacity of 5.8 million tonnes per annum (mtpa). Of this, 2.8 mtpa is at the flagship unit in Maihar Madhya Pradesh that was commissioned last year. The remaining units are in Kundaganj (UP) and Butiburi in Maharastra.