Dangote Cement plans London share sale by end-2012
Dangote Cement Plc, Nigeria’s biggest company by market value, plans to raise funds in a London share sale before the end of 2012 as it moves to more than double output in two years, Chairman Aliko Dangote said.
The Lagos-based company plans to invest US$3.9bn over the next 28 months to boost cement output to 50Mt by 2013 from an estimated 20Mt this year, Dangote said today in an interview in Cape Town, where he is attending the World Economic Forum on Africa.
The cement maker will sell global depositary receipts in London before the end of next year to raise funds to help expand the business, Dangote said, without giving details of how much it plans to raise from the share sale. The company will probably seek between US$3bn and US$5 billion, two people with knowledge of the sale told Bloomberg News on Dec. 6.
“We have a major infrastructure deficit in Africa,” Dangote said. “In Nigeria, we have an 18 million-homes deficit. This will continue to grow because growth in population in Nigeria is 3 percent per annum. Definitely, we need cement to drive that growth.”
Published under Cement News
