Expect a lot of competition between Adani and UltraTech going ahead: Sanjay Ladiwala

I do not think UltraTech is going to take it lying down. They also have plans and they have consistent plans, says cement expert Sanjay Ladiwala.

How do you see the number one cement company in India, UltraTech, responding to the Adani-Holcim deal? Kumar Mangalam Birla was looking to divest stakes in certain plants. How do you see UltraTech responding now?
Well firstly the Adani statement about doubling capacity in five years – we are talking about close to 70,000 tonnes– is not a joke. The amount of raw material accumulation which is involved, the capacity to be put in, the physical movement of that capacity, I very much doubt. In the past, I do not think anybody has been able to do that kind of expansion.

Yes over a period of years, they will look to do that and they will try to match UltraTech in size which today is about double – they are about 120 million tonnes versus Holcim’s 70 million tonnes. So they will try to match their capacity but I doubt very much whether it could be done in five years.


At the same time, I do not think UltraTech is going to take it lying down. They also have plans and they have consistent plans. In the past, they have consistently grown over the years and that whole trend continues. So I do not think they are going to take it lying down. Henceforth, we will see quite a lot of competition amongst the two, but it is going to take quite some. I do not see it happening in five years.