Irish construction group CRH’s shares drop on Holcim/ Lafarge snag

Holcim called a halt yesterday to its merger with Lafarge, pressing the French company to renegotiate the deal terms and putting its plan to create the world’s biggest cement maker at risk.

The deal announced in April 2014 was supposed to combine the firms on an equal basis. However, diverging results, share prices and a Swiss franc surge against the euro have improved Holcim’s position and led its largest shareholder to press publicly for a revision of the agreement.

“The Holcim board of directors has concluded that the combination agreement can no longer be pursued in its present form”, Holcim said in a statement, saying it was ready to talk about both the share exchange ratio and “governance issues”.