Premix Concrete SA, Adbri agree multimillion-dollar deal

From humble beginnings with a single truck in 1989, the family behind a concrete supply company has struck a multimillion-dollar deal to sell to industry giant Adbri.

Premix Concrete SA founder Vic Femia pictured with his sons Frank, Nick and Rob in 2011.

From humble beginnings with a single truck in the late 1980s, the family behind concrete products supplier Premix Concrete SA has struck a multimillion-dollar deal to sell the business to industry giant Adbri.

The proposed sale includes the group’s core ready-mix concrete supply business, as well as the Seelander Quarry at Penrice, the Clinton Sands sand quarry on the Yorke Peninsula and Adelaide Industrial Sands, which produces silica sand and gravel products from the materials extracted at Clinton.

A sale price has not been disclosed.

Italian immigrant Vic Femia established Premix Concrete SA in 1989, growing and diversifying the operations with the support of his sons Frank, Nick and Rob, before his death in 2020.

Nick Femia.

The trio has continued to run the Salisbury-headquartered company, which operates four concrete plants at Gawler, Callington, Lonsdale and Salisbury, quarry operations and a sand processing plant at Salisbury South.

The group employs a total of more than 100 workers, with its pre-mixed concrete products – including its flagship Stylecrete decorative concrete range – supplied for industrial, commercial and domestic users, ranging from large scale commercial developments to small residential projects.

The Adelaide Brighton cement plant at Birkenhead.

The Femia family and Adbri both declined to comment on the deal, which is currently under review by the ACCC.

The ACCC’s investigation is focused on the impact of the proposed acquisition on competition in the South Australian market, given the overlap in the supply of ready-mix concrete and aggregates.

Adbri manufactures, imports and supplies building materials across Australia, and has 12 ready-mix sites across the greater Adelaide area, as well as two hard rock quarries at Penrice and Sellicks Hill, and two sand quarries on the Yorke Peninsula.

Adbri currently self-supplies cement for its ready-mix sites via its Adbri Cement business.

Submissions to the ACCC review close on June 27, with the findings expected to be released on August 28.

The deal also requires the approval of the Foreign Investment Review Board, given the recent $2.1bn acquisition of Adbri by a consortium led by Irish building materials group CRH.

CRH owns 57 per cent of Adbri, while Melbourne-based building materials company and long-time Adbri shareholder, Barro Group, retains the remaining 43 per cent as part of the deal which closed last July.

Adelaide-based Adbri, formerly known as Adelaide Brighton, was founded in 1882 and had been trading on the ASX before the CRH buyout.

The company recently partnered with Cement Australia, Holcim and Heidelberg Materials Australia on a bid for the cement assets of Perth-based BGC, with the ACCC expected to deliver its findings on that proposed acquisition on July 25.