On February 13, the Kyiv Commercial Court invalidated the decision of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) to grant permission to CRH Ukraine B.V., a subsidiary of Irish CRH, to acquire the Dickergoff group of companies in Ukraine from Italian Buzzi, following a lawsuit filed by Kovalska Industrial and Construction Group LLC. This is stated in the decision in case 910/13150/24, which was reviewed byInterfax-Ukraine.
As reported, in the fall of 2024, CRH, the world’s leading manufacturer of building materials, after obtaining the AMCU’s approval, completed the acquisition of the Dickergoff group of companies in Ukraine from Buzzi for EUR 100 million.
According to the case file, the claims are based on the fact that the disputed decision of the AMC is illegal and unfounded due to incomplete clarification and proof of the circumstances relevant to the concentration case, as well as incomplete research of the ready-to-use concrete mixtures market by the defendant.
The decision also notes that CRH has already violated its obligations. One of them is the obligation to appoint, within 5 years from the date of the declared concentration, persons who do not hold positions in business entities related to CRH Ukraine B.V. in Ukraine as general and commercial directors, members of executive and supervisory bodies of PrJSC “Dickergoff cement Ukraine”. However, at the extraordinary general meeting of PrJSC “Dickergoff Cement Ukraine” on October 11, 2024, Mariusz Tomasz Bogacz, a member of the Supervisory Board of JSC “Podilsky Cement”, in which CRH Ukraine B.V. is a 100% participant, was elected as a member of the Supervisory Board.
The decision of the Commercial Court was made public on March 20, and Interfax-Ukraine requested a comment from CRH Ukraine B.V. on whether it is appealing the decision.
As reported, in September 2024, the AMCU allowed the subsidiary of Irish CRH, CRH Ukraine B.V. (Rotterdam, the Netherlands), to acquire shares in PrJSC Dickergoff Cement Ukraine, which will provide it with more than 50% of the votes in the supreme management body of the acquired asset, but subject to a number of obligations, including finding an independent investor for 25-28% of the shares. It is expected that this investor will be the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), as in December 2023 CRH signed a mandate letter with it on the joint acquisition of the assets of the Italian company Buzzi in Ukraine. The AMC has been considering CRH’s merger filing since September 2023.
In June 2023, the Italian cement producer Buzzi, listed by the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption as an international war sponsor, reached an agreement through its subsidiary Dyckerhoff GmbH to sell part of its Eastern European business to the Irish CRH Group, including its Ukrainian assets in the form of two cement plants: “Volyn-Cement (Zdolbuniv, Rivne region) and Pivden-Cement (Olshanske, Mykolaiv region).
CRH has been operating in Ukraine since 1999. Since November 2021, its cement enterprises in Ukraine have been operating under the Cemark brand: Podilsky Cement JSC (Khmelnytsky region), Cement LLC (Odesa), and Mykolaivcement PrJSC (Lviv region).
CRH’s separate business in Ukraine is the production of concrete and reinforced concrete products. PoliBeton Energo’s Bila Tserkva concrete goods plant is a specialized enterprise that produces power transmission towers. PoliBeton’s concrete hub in the north of Odesa joined CRH in 2020.
CRH is the world’s leading building materials manufacturer and the largest in North America and Europe. It has 3,200 plants in 28 countries and employs about 71,000 people. The company is also represented in Asia. CRH American depositary shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
