Tycoon may give up cement stake

Germany's billionaire Merckle family may be forced to surrender a 53 percent stake in HeidelbergCement AG to banks, part of last-minute efforts to keep its investment companies afloat, three people familiar with the situation said.

A group of more than 30 banks led by Commerzbank AG, Deutsche Bank AG, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Landesbank Baden- Wuerttemberg demanded the stake in return for a 700 million-euro ($971 million) refinancing package for the family's Spohn Cement GmbH investment unit, said the people, who declined to be identified as the plan isn't public.

Adolf Merckle, 74, has an estimated $9.2 billion fortune that puts him 94th on Forbes' list of the world's richest people this year. He has sought emergency funding for more than two months as the family's spiraling debts threaten holdings including Spohn, drug wholesaler Phoenix Pharmahandel AG and the VEM Vermoegensverwaltung GmbH investment unit, which owes banks about 5 billion euros after wrong-way bets on Volkswagen AG and other stock trades, the people said.