Cemex fails to annul sale of 14% shares in Akmenes

Cemex has failed to obtain a court order invalidating deals on the sale of a stake in Lithuania’s sole cement producer, Akmenes Cementas, through which Lithuanian three families were to take over control of the company.

According to Baltic Business Daily, the Lithuanian Court of Appeals on 8 October turned down an appeal filed by Dutch-registered Rugby Holding, a subsidiary of Cemex, and refused to declare an agreement on the sale of a 13.68 per cent stake in Akmenes null and void and apply restitution. The Appeals Court thus upheld the Vilnius Regional Court's decision of December 2014.

The deal, signed in April 2013, and later transactions gave the families of Simonas Vytis Anuzis, Arnoldas Mituzas and Edmundas Montvila a combined stake of 50.31 per cent in Akmenes Cementas.

Rugby Holding claimed that it had reach an agreement with the Danyla family to by their shares in Akmenes Cementas for EUR20m, but they sold the shares, based on an alleged forged shareholders' agreement, to Algimantas Mituzas, the father of the then chairman of the management board, Arnoldas Mituzas.

Both the Vilnius Regional Court and the Appeals Court stated that there had been no agreement between Rugby Holding and the Danyla family on the sale of the shares and that the company had failed to prove the fact of forgery of the shareholders' agreement.

Rugby Holding told the court that the acquisition had been possibly financed by Germany's HeidelbergCement Northern Europe, which, it claimed, had thus taken over control of the cement producer without approval from the Lithuanian competition watchdog. These arguments were not taken into consideration either.

Rugby Holding held 37.84 perc ent of shares in Akmenes Cementas at the end of last year. Other shareholders included Arnoldas Mituzas with 18.68 per cent, Anuzis with 13.67 per cent, Montvila with 9.8 percent and HeidelbergCement with 8.65 per cent. (Source: Baltic Business Daily)