A Lafarge North America and Martin Marietta Materials asset swap will net the latter company a major metro-Denver presence, including 10 ready mixed and six aggregate operations, plus nine asphalt production or road-building office/ equipment sites. The properties figure to join Martin Marietta West Group’s Western Division, with two Wyoming and four Nebraska quarries. The transaction adds a third West Group state, alongside Arkansas and Texas, where the company has integrated ready mixed and aggregate production.
Subject to Department of Justice approval, the deal transfers Martin Marietta’s Mississippi River aggregate production and distribution operations, from Illinois to Louisiana, to Lafarge North America. The companies released limited details of the transaction in mid-October, pending federal government review. In addition to the Mississippi River properties, anchored by the Three Rivers Quarry near Paducah, Ky., Lafarge North America will receive a cash payment of unspecified amount.
Lafarge North America inherited the metro-Denver properties in 1997, as then-majority shareholder Lafarge Group acquired U.K.-based Redland Plc, assimilating Redland USA construction materials operations into existing U.S. regions. The Martin Marietta transaction follows Lafarge North America’s unloading of Southeastern ready mixed, block and cement production assets earlier this year in a $760 million deal with Argos USA.