French cement company, Lafarge has bought Larsen & Toubro’s (L&T's) ready-mix concrete (RMC) business for an enterprise value of Rs 1,480 crore ($349 million).

The recent acquisition will help Lafarge to expand into rising market segments and establish its leadership in the Indian market.

With this acquirement, Lafarge will gain control of 66 concrete plants of L&T situated in key markets such as Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Bangalore.

Moreover, the French company will gain a market share of about 25 per cent in the Indian market.

Bruno Lafont, chairman and CEO of Lafarge, stated, “With this acquisition, we are taking a pioneering step in the emerging Indian market.”

Swiss firm Holcim was also in the race to buy L&T’s RMC business.

However, Lafarge beat Holcim and wins the race. Holcim has its operations in India through ACC and Ambuja Cements.

The actual fact is that this acquisition, to an extent, will pitch Lafarge ahead in the strong-growing readymix concrete business.

One of Lafarge’s key strategic focuses today is novelty in concrete that transforms into an accelerated roll-out of value-added concrete products in both developed and promising markets.

In a declaration, the company said that Lafarge will be aiming to provide the Indian market its advanced and value-creative solutions for construction.

For Lafarge, which has a strong presence in eastern India, acquisition of L&T Concrete would also give it the much-needed pan- Indian character.

Lafarge entered the Indian market in 1999 after acquiring Tata Steel's cement division, which was followed by the purchase of the Raymond Cement facility in 2001. The company has a capacity of six million tonnes but has plans to double up this by the next two years (2010) through greenfield ventures.

Presently, Lafarge has three cement plants in India - two in Chhattisgarh and a grinding unit in Jharkhand. Its sales for the quarter ended March stood at 4 billion euros and net profit, 150 million euros.