Adani’s Long-Awaited Cement Merger Arrives As An Afterthought For The Market

By Amritha Pillay

What?

For more than a decade, Indian equity analysts have dedicated scores of reports with a single, persistent forecast about the merger of the country’s two biggest cement companies — ACC Ltd and Ambuja Cements Ltd. The tie-up was seen as a corporate consolidation in India’s industrial landscape that would unlock massive scale.

Last December, the Adani Group finally announced the mega-merger. ACC and the recently acquired Orient Cement Ltd will be folded into Ambuja Cements. It was termed a "Pan-India Cement Powerhouse." However, the industry reaction remains lukewarm.

The deal, while monumental in size, arrives at a moment where its operational relevance has been largely superseded by years of aggressive backdoor integration. At the moment, for the industry, it is an administrative cleanup of a consolidation that, for all practical purposes, already happened.

Why?

The primary critique from industry insiders is that this merger does nothing to tilt that balance. Ambuja Cements already reports consolidated numbers, including those of its subsidiary ACC. The "competitive position and pricing behaviour remain exactly the same," according to internal assessments and dealer feedback.

“The merger does not change much for the sector, as the two companies have already been operating in synergy. For the companies themselves, it definitely means faster or quicker execution and better utilisation of capital and other resources,” an analyst tracking the sector told The Core on the condition of anonymity.

Instead of the sector or operations, the newly announced merger holds relevance for shareholders, both minor and major, of the two companies, ACC and Orient Cement. For instance, for promoters, as Adani Cement noted, the merger will allow direct shareholding in a stronger entity.

From a minority shareholder's point of view, analysts have deemed the swap ratio as neutral for ACC shareholders and an upside of 9% for Orient Cement, based on current trading prices. Orient Cement share prices, however, are trading at Rs165+ levels, significantly lower than Rs 300+ levels when the Orient-Adani acquisition was completed.

What does it mean for small entities in the industry?

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$200 billion

That’s how much US customs revenue increased by in 2025. Foreign exporters absorbed only about 4% of the added tariff burden, passing roughly 96% on to US buyers, according to a new study published by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Fast Facts: The researchers analysed more than 25 million shipment records worth nearly $4 trillion in US imports between January 2024 and November 2025, using detailed bill-of-lading and customs data to track how tariffs affected prices and trade volumes.

Contrary to claims by the Donald Trump administration that foreign exporters would pay the cost, the data showed that exporters from India and Brazil did not lower their prices after the US imposed additional tariffs in August 2025. Export prices to the US remained in line with shipments to other markets such as Europe and Canada, indicating that exporters did not absorb the tariff hit.

Pivot: Instead, they cut shipment volumes by up to 24%, leaving US importers and consumers to bear higher costs. In effect, the tariffs functioned as a de facto consumption tax on American buyers, reducing trade volumes and disrupting supply chains while exporters protected margins by sacrificing quantity rather than price.

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