Lucky Cement Limited has acquired 75.81 percent stake in ICI Pakistan held by ICI Omicron, a 100 percent owned subsidiary of AkzoNobel. ICI Pakistan has recently de-merged the company and separated its businesses in two entities namely AkzoNobel Pakistan having paint business and ICI Pakistan Limited having PSF, soda ash, life sciences and captive power plant.
On June 13, 2012, AkzoNobel N V announced launching process for the sale of 75.81 percent shareholding in ICI Pakistan Limited held by AkzoNobel through its wholly-owned subsidiary ICI Omicron B.V. Three potential buyers namely Lucky Cement Limited, Nishat Mills Limited and a consortium of Fajr Capital of Dubai and ICorp (owned by existing employees of ICI Pak) expressed their interest in acquiring the company. Nishat Mills Limited, however, withdrew its Public Announcement of Intention (PAoI) for the proposed acquisition on July 25, 2012. The two remaining companies carried out due diligence for potential acquisition and participated in bidding process.
And Lucky Cement successfully acquired 75.81 percent stake in ICI Pakistan held by ICI Omicron, a 100 percent owned subsidiary of AkzoNobel. ICI Pakistan currently has 122,000 tons of polyester fibre capacity, 350,000 tons of soda ash, 32,000 tons of other chemicals and a captive power plant with a capacity of 22GW supplying power to PSF unit.
Lucky Cement Limited, sponsored by well-known "Yunus Brothers Group" is Pakistan's largest producer and leading exporter of cement with the production capacity of 7.75 million tons per annum. The company is listed on Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and London Stock Exchanges. Lucky Cement Limited currently has the capacity of producing 25,000 tons per day of dry process cement. Lucky Cement is Pakistan's first company to export sizeable quantities of loose cement being the only cement manufacturer to have its own loading and storage terminal at Karachi Port.
Source: Business Recorder
