Lafarge is paying EUR226m to acquire L&T Concrete from the Indian engineering group Larsen & Toubro.  When Larsen & Toubro sold its cement business to Birla in 2003, who renamed it UltraTech Cement, the engineering group kept the ready-mixed concrete business. 

L&T Concrete is the largest producer of ready-mixed concrete in the rapidly growing Indian market.  At present, only about 3% of the Indian cement consumption goes into ready-mixed concrete. The business currently operates 66 batching plants and claims a market share of around a quarter.    

Twenty-five of the plants are in the south of the country, with the remainder being in the west and in the north.  This year, the volume of L&T Concrete is expected to reach around 4.1Mm³.   Holcim is believed to have shown some interest in L&T Concrete, but not being prepared to pay a premium for a business with such low barriers of entry, especially since it had already started to develop a ready-mixed concrete business under the name of ACC Concrete.