Breedon Aggregates has pulled out of the bidding for assets being sold by Lafarge and Tarmac as a precondition for their proposed UK construction materials joint venture.

Breedon said that over the past two months it had conducted a thorough review of the assets being made available in the disposal packages. Earlier this month it submitted conditional offers for a number of the assets but, having been rejected, it is now pulling out.

In a statement, Breedon said: “The group has been unable to meet the value expectations of the sellers in respect of the majority of assets by number and value and has therefore withdrawn from the bidding process for these assets.”

It added that it “remains in discussion regarding the possible acquisition of certain of the other assets and will make a further announcement on this in due course”.

Breedon has shown an appetite for acquisitions since its formation in 2010 and remains in discussion with a number of other potential sellers.

As previously reported here, the Competition Commission has directed Tarmac and Lafarge to sell:

• a cement plant in Hope, Derbyshire as well as the nearby Dowlow quarry and three linked rail depots
• a substantial network of readymix (RMX) plants, representing well over half of the proposed joint venture’s RMX capacity
• six aggregate quarries as well as Tarmac’s share of two quarries owned through its Midlands Quarry Products (MQP) joint venture with Hanson - and one rail depot, and
• two asphalt plants as well as Tarmac’s share of five plants owned through MQP.

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