ACC Limited: The story of India’s first Historic Merger

Post by: kartik on June 26th, 2008 | File Under Business Talk, Entrepreneurship

ACC (ACC Limited) is India’s number one manufacturer of cement and concrete. ACC’s has operations throughout the country with 14 modern cement factories, more than 30 Ready mix concrete plants, 20 sales offices, and several zonal offices. It employs a workforce at nearly 10,000 head counts and a countrywide distribution network of over 9,000 dealers.

In the 70 years of its existence, ACC has been a pioneer in the manufacture of cement and concrete and a trendsetter in many areas of cement and concrete technology including improvements in raw material utilisation, process improvement, energy conservation and development of high performance concretes.

ACC’s brand name is synonymous with cement and enjoys a high level of equity in the Indian market. It is the only cement company that figures in the list of Consumer SuperBrands of India.

           F.E Dinshaw, the founder of ACC. He, along with other likeminded entrepreneurs founded the Indian Cement Industry.

Wikipedia gives the following definition for a Merger:

 A merger is a tool used by the companies for the purpose of expanding their operations, often aiming at an increase of their long term profitability.

Usually mergers occurs in a consensual setting where executives from the target company help those from the purchaser in a due diligence process to ensure that the deal is beneficial to both parties.

The year was 1936, when ten cement companies came together under a common umbrella. The companies belonged to four prominent business groups:

  • The Tatas
  • Khataus
  • Killick Nixon
  • F.E Dinshaw groups

This Merger proved to be very successful. Their unity of purpose ensured that they had an unbeatable lead in the Industry. The formation of ACC represents a quest for the synergy of good business practices, values and shared objectives.

ACC’ s first board meeting took place in 1936 at THE ESPLANADA. Sir Nowroji B Saklatvala was the first chairman of ACC.

Notable list of Business luminaries who attended this meeting were:

  • JRD Tata
  • Ambalal Sarabhai
  • Welchand Hirachand
  • Sir Homy Modi
  • Sir Akbar Hydari

The Tatas, who were intimately associated with the ACC since the start finally called it quits in the year 2000. Their association lasted for 64 years. They sold their shares to Gujarat Ambuja Cements. (GACL)

Recently, the ACC formed a new startegic alliance with Holcim, a reputed corporate entity based in Switzerland.

Popularity: 18%

Events and stuff entrepreneurs should watchout for

Post by: Akash Xavier on March 9th, 2008 | File Under Business Talk, Entrepreneurship, Investors and VCs, Resources, Startups

There a few events that entrepreneurs should make their presence felt at.

BarCamps

According to wikipedia “BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants”

Almost every city has a BarCamp these days. Below are a few:

Those were just a few links to make it easy for you. However you can just visit BarCamp.org and search for your city or even better just google it :)

If your city doesn’t have a BarCamp then try starting one yourself. The details are found in the BarCamp official site BarCamp.org.

Proto.in

This is a an event thats especially setup for entrepreneurs to showcase their startups to VCs. Take a look at www.proto.in

More similar ones:

And also to mention there’s a weekly event called “Startup Saturdays” conducted by KickStart. So take a look at that too on their website www.kickstart.in

There’s also an online pitch for entrepreneurs to showcase their startups to VCs. Its called Vator.tv. Just post your videos at Vator.tv and wait for a VC to contact you.

Popularity: 54%