Sovereign Fund Investment Corporation of Dubai, ICD, has bought a 1.4 per cent stake in Dangote Cement Plc., Nigeria’s biggest company, by market capitalisation for $300m, a Dangote spokesman said yesterday. The spokesman, Carl Franklin, confirmed the sale but provided no further details.Stockbrokers in Lagos told Reuters that 243m shares of Dangote Cement were transferred to ICD, which holds stakes in some of the emirate’s top companies, at N200, a 12 per cent premium to Dangote Cement’s price of around N223 yesterday.
“ICD is diversifying its portfolio in the West African market through a minority stake in Dangote Cement. We believe this holds well for future investments into Nigeria from the Middle East,” an Africa equity sales executive at Renaissance Capital, Akinbamidele Akintola, said. Dangote Cement, owned by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, is expanding and plans to roll out cement plants across Africa to reach an annual 62m capacity by 2017, up from a projected 42m tonnes this year.
It reported a pretax profit of N107.1bn; $659.4m, in the first half, down 0.57 per cent from a year ago, on revenues of N208.9bn.
Shares in Dangote Cement, which makes up a third of Nigeria’s stock market and hit a record high of N250 in July, traded flat at N223 on yesterday, valuing Nigeria’s biggest company at about N3.97trn, $24.5bn.
The company faces competition in Africa from French cement maker, Lafarge, which is combining its Nigerian and South African businesses to accelerate growth on the continent.
Last year, Dangote Industries sold a 1.5 per cent of its 95 per cent stake in Africa’s biggest cement producer to South Africa’s Public Investment Corporation, PIC, for $289.3m.
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