India's Adani gets $3.5 billion loan to refinance cement expansion debt

BENGALURU (Reuters) -The cement business of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani's flagship group said on Friday it had secured a new $3.5 billion loan to refinance debt it had taken to buy ACC Ltd and Ambuja Cements last year.

The refinancing of the loan was concluded with 10 international banks including DBS, First Abu Dhabi Bank and Mizuho Bank for a tenor of 3 years, the group said in a statement, adding that it would save Adani Cement about $300 million in costs.

Adani Group entered the cement sector last year with a $10.5 billion deal to buy Ambuja and ACC from Swiss giant Holcim. In August, it bought another local cement maker, Sanghi Industries, for $295 million.

Shares in ACC, which were down over 3% before the announcement, trimmed losses to 2.5%, while shares in Ambuja pared some losses to trade around 1.1% lower.

Adani Cement plans to increase its cement manufacturing capacity to 100 million tonnes per year by 2025 from 67 MTPA currently.

(Reporting by Nandan Mandayam in Bengaluru and Dhwani Pandya in Mumbai; editing by Miral Fahmy)