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Holcim Gets ‘Positive’ Report From ISS on Planned Lafarge Merger 2015-04-21 12:15:18.93 GMT
By Francois de Beaupuy and Jan-Henrik Förster (Bloomberg) -- Swiss cement maker Holcim Ltd. said it got a “positive” report from corporate governance adviser International Shareholder Services about its planned merger with French rival Lafarge SA, a move that may help win approval for the deal at a investor meeting next month. “We see it as positive and it’s another step forward,” Peter Stopfer, a spokesman for Jona, Switzerland-based Holcim, said of the ISS report via phone. Representatives for ISS couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. Two-thirds of Holcim’s investors need to approve a capital increase for the deal to go through. Thomas Schmidheiny, Holcim’s largest shareholder and the billionaire co-architect of the merger, supported the tie-up from the beginning. Harris Associates, which is Holcim’s third-biggest shareholder with 6.4 percent, this month said it’s “leaning” toward voting in favor of the deal. It’s not clear yet how the second-biggest shareholder, Eurocement, will vote. Holcim earlier this month risked alienating the investor after saying the Russian company’s proposal to get a board seat may have to wait. Lafarge and Holcim already had to tweak the original merger agreement in March to win over Holcim investors who were unhappy about the performance of the French company since the deal was agreed last year. The Swiss company will now have a bigger stake in the new entity, and the cement makers also appointed Eric Olsen to lead their combined operation after Holcim shareholders opposed Lafarge CEO Bruno Lafont as head of the new group.
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To contact the reporters on this story: Francois de Beaupuy in Paris at +33-1-5365-5051 or fdebeaupuy@bloomberg.net; Jan-Henrik Förster in Zurich at +41-44-224-4116 or jforster20@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Simon Thiel at +44-20-3525-2814 or sthiel1@bloomberg.net Andrew Noël