It’s taken five months, and the fat lady (a/k/a Sydney-based Perpetual Investments) hasn’t sung quite yet, but it very much looks as though Mexican cement company Cemex has finally snagged Rinker. Cemex is arguably the best-run company in Latin America, and has been growing through acquisitions for decades – it knows how to play this game. But this was a tough one, mainly because Rinker is headquartered and listed in Australia. Rinker’s operations are primarily in the US, and so Cemex is valuing the company in US dollars. But the Australian dollar is so strong these days – it just hit a 17-year high – that any price in US dollars seems underwhelming in Aussie terms.
But the deal seems to be all but done, and the markets like it: Cemex’s shares are up, and Rinker’s shares are trading below the Cemex offer price, which means that no one expects a better offer to come along. Count this as a triumph for Cemex CEO Lorenzo Zambrano, who’s paying a sum substantially lower than Rinker was trading at last year.