ACC

ACC Limited (ACC) is one of the market leaders in the building materials segment. Now a part of the Adani Group, the company is India's number one provider of Portland cement and ready-mix concrete.

The Associated Cement Companies Limited (ACC) was formed in 1936 after the merger of ten existing cement companies representing four prominent business groups - Tatas, Khataus, Killick Nixon, and F E Dinshaw. It was colonial India’s first big merger at a time the term mergers and acquisitions was virtually unheard of.

The company was incorporated in August 1936. On October 23, 1937, with the transfer of the 10th company - Dewarkhand Cement Company - the merger process for ACC was complete.

The ACC established India’s first entirely indigenous cement plant at Chaibasa in Bihar in 1947. The company set up a bulk cement depot at Okhla, Delhi, in 1956, and acquired Cement Marketing Company of India (CMI) in 1973.

In 1979, ACC bagged an international contract for operating and managing a new one million tonne cement plant in Yanbu-Ras Biridi, Saudi Arabia.

Three years later the company commissioned its first 1 MTPA plant in India at Wadi, Karnataka.

In November 1996, the company was listed on the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

In 1999, the Tata Group offloaded 7.2% of its stake in ACC to Ambuja Cement Holdings Ltd and exited the cement company the next year by selling its remaining stake to the GACL group, which emerged as the company’s largest stakeholder owning 14.45% of the shares.

In 2005, Switzerland’s Holcim group formed a strategic alliance with Ambuja Group by picking up the majority stake in Ambuja Cements India Ltd. (ACIL) which at the time owned a 13.8% stake in ACC.

In September 2006, the company’s name was changed to ACC Ltd. In 2022, ACC became a part of Adani Group, which purchased the shares held by Holcim in the company.

ACC’s market capitalisation stood at over ₹40,700 crore as of December 28, 2023. ACC share price has gone up 34% in the last three years.

ACC Business operations

ACC Ltd owns and operates 17 cement manufacturing units and 85 ready-mix concrete plants in various states across India. Its portfolio of products also includes tile adhesives, ready-to-use plaster and cementitious grout.

The company has an Installed cement manufacturing capacity of 36.05 MTPA, with its brand architecture classified under the Gold range and Silver range of products. It caters to its customers through a large distribution network of 56,000 dealers and retailers and a countrywide spread of sales offices.

The company has installed the world's largest kiln having the capacity to produce 12,500 tonnes per day at its cement plant in Wadi, Karnataka.

ACC along with its parent Ambuja Cement has bagged seven coal and limestone blocks with notified resources surpassing 1,000 million tonnes in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Odisha.

Financial highlights

• Standalone revenue from operations increased 46.58% to ₹22,210 crore for the 15-month period till the end of FY23 from ₹16,151 crore for the year ended December 31, 2021.
• EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) stood at ₹2,256 crore for the 15-month period ending on March 31, 2023.
• Profit after tax (PAT) dropped 52% to ₹870 crore for the 15 months till the end of FY23 from ₹1,820 crore for the year ended December 31, 2021.
• The company's earnings per share (EPS) stood at ₹46 for the 15 months till the end of FY23.
• The company declared a dividend of ₹9.25 per share (95%) for the FY23 fiscal.