On July 31, 2015, CRH plc completed its acquisition of certain assets (principally in Canada, Europe and Brazil) from LafargeHolcim, for an enterprise value of €6.5 billion. The Canadian portion of the transaction, involving the acquisition of all of Holcim’s Canadian operations and all associated assets, was effected by way of the transfer of all of the issued and outstanding shares of Holcim (Canada) Inc. The Canadian business will be operated under CRH Group Canada Inc. (Groupe CRH Canada Inc.). As part of the transaction, CRH also acquired certain US-based cement assets deemed material to the Canadian operations, and the US-based business will be operated under Oldcastle Materials Cement Holdings, Inc. dba CRH US.
CRH is a leading diversified international building materials group that employs approximately 91,000 people at approximately 4,000 operating locations in 37 countries worldwide. With a market capitalization of approximately €22 billion (July 2015), CRH is the largest building materials company in North America and the third largest worldwide.
LafargeHolcim, created through the global merger of Holcim Ltd and Lafarge S.A., is a world leader in the building materials industry, with 115,000 employees around the world and combined net sales of €27 billion in 2014.
The CRH internal legal team on the Canadian and US transactions was led by Deborah Murphey, Michael Deaton, and Erin Payne. CRH was represented by Arthur Cox, with a team led by Pádraig Ó Ríordáin. Stikeman Elliott LLP advised on Canadian matters, with a team that included John Leopold, Gayle Noble, Julien Michaud and Charlotte Verdebout (corporate), Jeffrey Brown, Megan MacDonald and Paul Beaudry (regulatory), Luc Bernier, Éric Lévesque and Adam Drori (tax), Nancy Ramalho, Hélène Bussières, Marie-Lou Gauthier and Tamara Ticoll (employment), Andrea Boctor (benefits), Stefan Fews, Nili Birshtein, Kasia Kmiec, Bavia Bisetty and Stéphanie Normandin (real estate), Myriam Fortin (environment) and Jonathan Auerbach (intellectual property).
The LafargeHolcim team was led by Xavier Dedullen, Lukas Studer and Juhani Kostka of LafargeHolcim. LafargeHolcim was represented by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer with a team led by Alan Mason. Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP advised LafargeHolcim on Canadian matters with a team that included David Kruse, Graham Smith, Kurt Sarno, Neelu Toor, Rory ffrench and Andrew Clark (corporate), Brian Facey, Joshua Krane and Cassandra Brown (regulatory), Daryl Cukierman (employment), Thomas von Hahn (real estate), Jeffrey Shafer (tax), Jonathan Kahn (environment) and Gary Daniel (intellectual property).