SigmaRoc hoping to emulate Breedon’s success

New AIM-listed venture seeking to snap up smaller materials supply companies in emerging markets

A NEW AIM-listed venture is looking to cash in on the construction boom in emerging markets by acquiring smaller materials supply companies.

The Telegraph [4 August] reports that SigmaRoc, led by a team of industry veterans, is adopting a ‘buy and build’ strategy, targeting companies that produce construction materials such as cement, concrete and aggregates.

It is understood that SigmaRoc are aiming to imitate the success of the Breedon Group, who floated in 2009, built up a portfolio of suppliers and are now valued at £1 billion, making them one of the largest companies on London’s Alternative Investment Market.

According to Max Vermorken, chief executive of the new venture, recent mergers in the construction materials industry have led to a raft of divestments, meaning that smaller companies can be picked up at bargain prices.

Mr Vermorken, who was previously a strategic advisor with LafargeHolcim and before that worked with Luxembourg-based private equity group Genii, will be backed in the venture by non-executive directors David Barrett, co-founder of London Concrete (now part of Aggregate Industries), and Dominic Traynor, a corporate lawyer specializing in listings and takeovers, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate finance.

According to The Telegraph, SigmaRoc will engineer a reverse takeover of the AIM shell of Messaging International, a provider of text-to-landline communications, which is being taken private by its shareholders.

The new venture, which will undertake a £500,000 initial capital raising and then seek additional funds for each acquisition it makes, plans to target operating businesses that have a particular exposure to smaller emerging market countries, particularly in Africa, where construction growth is burgeoning.

SigmaRoc are expecting to complete the takeover of Messaging International’s listing by the end of this month.