Britain’s richest man, steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, has made his first personal acquisition in the UK after agreeing to buy one of the country’s largest concrete plants in a £272 million deal with the UK’s Tarmac and France’s Lafarge.
In a deal that represents a vote of confidence in the UK, Mittal will acquire 172 readymix concrete plants and five aggregates quarries, as well as the Hope cement plant in Derbyshire.
A spokesman for Mittal said: “We have confidence in the future growth of the UK economy and, more specifically, the construction sector. As the UK moves out of recession we expect to see a recovery in construction activity.”
Mittal, the ArcelorMittal chief executive whose 41% stake in the steel giant is the main contributor to his £12.3 billion fortune, already owns about a third of Queens Park Rangers football club and a stake in Ophir, the London-listed Tanzania-focused oil explorer.
But today’s deal represents the first time that Mittal, whose lavish £57 million Kensington home was the world’s most expensive house when he bought it from Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone eight years ago, has bought UK-based operations in their entirety.
The deal also includes Anglo American-owned Tarmac’s 50% stake in Midland Quarry Products, one of the UK’s biggest suppliers of hard rock and asphalts.
Mittal told the Evening Standard in the summer that he “would love to do business in the UK if there are opportunities here” and, from the various businesses he bought in today’s deal, he plans to create a new cement, aggregates, asphalt and readymix business with 800 staff in 200 locations across the country. Its name will be announced after the deal completes.
Tarmac and Lafarge are selling the businesses to Mittal to satisfy a condition set by the Competition Commission to merge their building activities in the UK.
Mittal who shot to national prominence this year thanks to the 115 metre high ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture in the Olympic Park, is set to lose about £217 million in dividends after proposing this month to slash investor payouts by nearly three quarters next year.
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The move came after the company fell into the red in the third quarter as slowing demand from China and the continuing eurozone crisis dragged down the bottom line.
