ASEC Egypt gains major new local investor

The recent death of ASEC’s chairman Omar Guimei, a major shareholder in ASEC Cement has prompted a reshuffle of the company’s stock, and the sale last week of a significant 49 per cent stake to an Egyptian investor. This 49 per cent holding was held by MEET a Swiss-based investment group apparently linked to the Guemei family and others.

The unnamed Egyptian investor, who has pledged to keep the ASEC group of companies intact, apparently fought off a rival bid from Lafarge who would clearly have wanted control of ASEC, which not only operates the Helwan Cement complex with its 3Mt of capacity plus the smaller white El Minya works, but runs a very successful engineering and contracting company in Egypt which both manages and services a number of Egyptian cement works.

The remaining 51 per cent of the company is held by all the other major local cement companies distributed between Torah Portland Cement, Helwan Portland Cement (owned by ASEC), National Cement, Alexandria Cement and Suez Cement under a deal brokered when the company was formed back in the 1970s.