Lafarge, the world’s second-largest cement maker, has finally acquired Engineering and construction major Larsen and Toubro’s (L&T) Ready Mix Concrete (RMC) business for Rs. 1480 crore ($349 million).

The company has informed that it has routed the acquisition through its building material firm Lafarge Aggregates & Concrete.

RMC is a mixture of cement, water and other ingredients and it is widely used in the building and construction industry in India. L&T had decided to hive off its RMC business into a separate entity called L&T Concrete in December, last year.

With this acquisition, Lafarge will buy 66 concrete plants of L&T located in key markets, including Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Bangalore, with a total estimated volume of 4.1 million metric cubic capacity in 2008. The firm will also capture its market share of 25 per cent.

This acquisition comes soon after Lafarge started its first ready-mix concrete operations in Raipur, Chhattisgarh.

French cement company, Lafarge had entered India in 1999 after acquiring Tata Steel’s cement business. It subsequently acquired Raymond Ltd’s cement business in 2001.

At present, Lafarge has three cement plants in India — two in Chhattisgarh and a grinding unit in Jharkhand. The company has a capacity of six million tonnes but has plans to double this by 2010 through greenfield ventures.

Sources said that the acquisition was highly competitive because players like Holcim, AV Birla Group and Heidelberg were also present in the race to buy the business.

JM Financial has advised Lafarge on this transaction, while Citigroup Global Markets has advised L&T.