Austrialia’s Boral Ltd is among the potential foreign investors looking at acquiring Mexican cement maker Cemex SA’s 25.53 per cent stake in Indonesia’s largest cement company PT Semen Gresik, Kompas daily reported, citing a legislator. Kompas quoted Khofifa Indar Parawansa, who chairs the Lower House of Parliament (DPR)’s Commission V, as saying that Cemex has agreed to sell its stake in Gresik and that in return the government will allow Cemex to build new plants in West Java. "That’s what I understand," she said.
Cemex is still negotiating with the government to find the best out-of-court settlement deal to a long-standing dispute over a failed option to acquire a majority stake in Semen Gresik. Indonesian officials have claimed that instead of fighting for additional shares, Cemex is now willing to divest its existing stake in Gresik and use the proceeds to invest in new plants but Cemex officials have not yet confirmed this.
