German giant goes ACC factory hunting

German construction supplies maker Xellaporenbeton, part of the Haniel – Bau Industrie giant, whose turnover stands at 1.5bn euros a year, plans to buy one of the top three producers of autoclaved cellular concrete (ACC) in Romania. Its list includes Simcor Oradea, Elpreco Craiova, Macon Deva and Prefabricate Vest Bucharest, sources close to the talks told Ziarul Financiar.

The Germans have been looking for an opportunity to tap into the Romanian ACC market for over a year and they have announced they are interested in both acquisitions and in greenfield projects.

Xellaporenbeton has already commissioned a survey of the ACC market in Romania, a very lucrative business for investors at the moment, the quoted sources say.

The Germans are now in advanced talks with Macon Deva to buy the ACC business, yet Macon came up with a counteroffer.

“We’ve had talks with Xellaporenbeton. They expressed interest in buying the ACC facility from Macon but we are not selling at the moment. We proposed them to become partners in building such a factory from the ground up,” Olimpiu Matei, Macon Deva’s deputy general manager told Ziarul Financiar.

He estimates the project to build an ACC facility to be worth some 30-35 million euros, given that the acquisition of an already existing factory costs about as much.

Macon Deva makes ACC, insulating material, mineral cotton as well as various other materials and has its own very high quality clay quarry that keeps it supplied with raw material.

Macon expects 740bn ROL turnover this year (more than 18 million euros), given that the ACC business currently accounts for 40% of the total.

“Those at Xella contacted us, too, they are looking to buy ACC factories in Romania, but we turned them down,” Simcor Oradea sources say, a company controlled by German businessman Stache Lutz.

At the same time, Elpreco Craiova’s main shareholder, US investment fund Broadhurst Investments, confirmed it had been contacted by a number of investors, but was not in talks over the sale of the company for the time being.

Market sources say that Prefabricate Vest Bucharest was in advanced talks with Xella a while back, but the negotiations were halted.

Xellaporenbeton had initially looked into the possibility to acquire Soceram Bucharest, which has ACC and other construction material production facilities, but eventually dropped plans to make a bid when the company was put up for privatisation. Soceram is now disputed by Elpreco and Simcor, among others.

Xellaporenbeton representatives did not provide any comments by the time the story was ready for print.
adrian.mirsanu@zf.ro