By Claire Ruckin
LONDON (Reuters) - Cement makers Lafarge and Holcim are preparing to sell assets in order to go ahead with their planned merger, and lenders are readying debt financing packages of around 4.5 billion euros (4 billion pounds) to back private equity bids, banking sources said on Friday.
The planned merger between French Lafarge and Swiss Holcim will create the world's top cement group with $44 billion in annual sales. To steer the deal past competition watchdogs, the pair have drawn up a list of assets to sell and have already drawn more than 60 bids.
A number of trade buyers and private equity consortiums are interested in bidding for the assets and bids are due in early 2015 via a competitive auction process, the banking sources said.
Bankers are preparing debt financings that equate to around 4.5-5.5 times the assets Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation (EBITDA) of approximately 725-730 million euros, including undrawn debt, the bankers said.
Debt would include a mix of leveraged loans and high yield bonds denominated in euros, sterling and dollars, the bankers said.
A staple financing package, which will be available to any potential buyer to back an acquisition, has been provided by BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse, HSBC and Morgan Stanley, the banking sources said with one of them adding it totalled around 5.25 times debt to earnings.
BC Partners, Advent and Temasek have teamed up for the assets, as have CVC and sovereign wealth funds the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Singapore's GIC. Bain and Onex form the third group and Blackstone (N:BX), Cinven and Canadian pension fund CPP are the fourth.
The pair are seeking buyers for Holcim's French activities, Lafarge's German interests and other operations in Austria, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Britain, Canada, the Philippines, Mauritius and Brazil. That would affect some 10,000 workers and account for about 3.5 billion euros of sales.
(Editing by Christopher Mangham)