(Bloomberg) -- Holcim Ltd. agreed to sell its Indian operations to local billionaire Gautam Adani, another step in Chief Executive Officer Jan Jenisch’s pivot away from traditional cement.

The Swiss company will sell its 63.1% stake in Mumbai-listed Ambuja Cements Ltd. to Adani Group in a deal valuing the business at nearly $10 billion, according to a statement Sunday. Adani will inherit Ambuja’s controlling stake in another publicly traded cement producer, ACC Ltd., and buy Holcim’s direct 4.5% holding in the unit, the statement shows. 

Adani is offering 385 rupees per share for Ambuja Cements, a 7.2% premium to Friday’s closing price, and will pay 2,300 per share for ACC. Holcim expects to receive 6.4 billion Swiss francs ($6.4 billion) of cash proceeds from the sale, it said in the statement. 

Jenisch, who joined Holcim in 2017 from Sika AG, has been selling non-core cement businesses and buying new construction companies to benefit from rising demand for energy efficient buildings. As part of the strategy, he acquired Malarkey Roofing Products in December and Firestone Building Products in early 2021.

Zug, Switzerland-based Holcim has recently been selling off non-core assets to fund acquisitions and cut debt, divesting its Brazilian unit for $1 billion in September and Asian businesses such as Holcim Indonesia in 2019. Jenisch, a 55-year-old German, has been cleaning up the company after the messy mega merger of Holcim and France’s Lafarge SA in 2015.

Holcim’s sale of its Indian business, which is subject to local regulatory approvals, is expected to close in the second half of 2022. 

For Adani, the deal gives Asia’s richest person a foothold in the subcontinent’s fragmented cement sector. His group beat out other local companies, including JSW Group, according to people familiar with the matter. Bloomberg News previously reported that Adani Group was in advanced talks with Holcim.

Expanding Portfolio

Adani Group has been moving beyond its core business of operating ports, power plants and coal mines and into areas like data centers, airports, digital services, retail and media. 

A first-generation entrepreneur with a net worth of about $100 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Guatam Adani has been looking to tranform the company into a multi-sector juggernaut like Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd. Adani overtook Ambani as Asia’s richest man earlier this year. 

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The deal for Ambuja will transform Adani Group into a sizable player in the cement sector. Founded in 1983, Ambuja has a cement capacity of 31 million metric tons, and has six integrated manufacturing plants and eight cement grinding units in India, its website shows.

Adani Group’s flagship firm Adani Enterprises Ltd. has two cement subsidiaries. Adani Cementation Ltd. is planning to build an integrated facility in Gujarat, according to a compliance report in November. The group established Adani Cement Ltd. in June 2021.

Deutsche Bank AG advised Adani Group on the deal. 

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