The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), one of the two antitrust authorities in the US, has cleared the acquisition by Lafarge, the Franco-UK building materials group, of Blue Circle, its UK counterpart.
The deal was cleared by the European Commission on March 1, and by the Canadian Competition Bureau on April 11. The FTC and Canadian authorities said there must be several disposals, and there is already an agreement in place for the sale of several assets for $727m (€623m). Lafarge's financial advisers are Schroder Salomon Smith Barney, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and BNP Paribas. Blue Circle's financial advisers are Lazard and Morgan Stanley.