Heidelberg Cement to acquire Meghna Energy
Meghna Energy, a captive power plant in Narayanganj district, provides reliable power supply to the adjacent Heidelberg Cement plant
Heidelberg Cement Bangladesh Limited is going to acquire Meghna Energy Limited to cut its operating costs.
For this purpose, Heidelberg Cement will arrange an Extra General Meeting (EGM) on its compound to take approval of its shareholders.
The EGM – a meeting that a company may arrange any time to get input from its members and shareholders on an urgent issue – will be held on February 25 on Heidelberg's factory premises. For this reason, the company has set January 28 as its record date.
A senior official of Heidelberg told The Business Standard that the merger with Meghna Energy will minimise the operation costs of the former.
Meghna Energy is a captive power plant located at Narayanganj district near Dhaka. It provides reliable power to the adjacent Heidelberg Cement plant which needs uninterrupted source of power to grind clinker and pack finished cement.
In July 2018, Heidelberg Cement Bangladesh, a sister concern of German based multinational building materials company HeidelbergCement Group, decided to acquire Meghna Energy Limited.
Later in July 2019, Heidelberg Cement filed an application with the High Court to seek its approval for the amalgamation of the two companies.
Last year, Heidelberg Cement acquired 99.99 percent or over 40.56 lakh shares of Meghna Energy at an estimated consideration of Tk91 crore.
Energypac Power Generation Limited has been operating and maintaining the Meghna Energy power plant since 2005.
The power plant comprises three gas engines with a total output capacity of 9.99 megawatts of electricity. Later, Heidelberg Cement bought the power plant from Energypac.
Recently, Heidelberg Cement completed acquiring 100 percent shares of Emirates Cement Bangladesh Limited and Emirates Power Company Limited from UltraTech Cement Middle East Investment Limited for around Tk183 crore.
Heidelberg Cement suffered significant losses in the third quarter of the last calendar year (July-September in 2019) after failing to compete with local competitors.
Following the disclosure of its losses, the German multinational company's share prices dropped by 8.57 percent. Heidelberg Cement suffered Tk14 crore in losses after its share prices dropped.
The multinational company also lost Tk2.53 per share. In the same period last year, the company made a profit of Tk12 crore and its earnings per share was Tk2.14.