Struggling German company Heidelberg-Cement has put its British building materials supplier business Hanson on the market for over £1bn.
Frankfurt-based Commerzbank has been hired to manage the sale.
Hanson UK is part of Hanson Global, which Heidelberg-Cement acquired in 2007 for £7.8bn. The German owner was left with £5.3m of debt afterwards.
Heidelberg-Cement, which is owned by Adolf Merckle's family, aims to sell £1.7bn of assets to help make repayments to banks.
Hanson UK has four arms encompassing concrete, building products, cement, aggregates and asphalt. It is understood to be possible that the operations will be broken up and sold separately. A purchase of smaller assets would be more manageable for buyers, according to Howard Seymour of broker Numis Securities.
Seymour is also reported as saying that Irish building materials company CRH, and Holcim, the Swiss supplier of cement could be interested in acquiring parts of Hanson UK.
It was reported earlier on in May that Hanson was reviewing some of its own assets for a potential sale including Hanson Building Products and Hanson Formpave.
