French building and engineered materials group Compagnie de Saint-Gobain has announced that it plans to acquire Schenker Winkler Holding AG, the owner of 16.1% of the shares and 52.4% of the voting rights of Switzerland-based Sika AG, for approximately €2.3 billion. Sika AG will then be fully consolidated into Saint-Gobain's accounts. At the same time, Saint-Gobain announced that it plans to fund the acquisition with proceeds from the sale of its glass packaging business, Verallia (excluding Verallia North America). We expect that the proceeds from the disposal of Verallia should comfortably cover cost of acquiring Schenker Winkler Holding AG, with both transactions likely to close and fund in the second half of 2015. We continue to assess Saint-Gobain's business risk
