Huaxin Cement acquires ARM Cement's Tanzanian unit

The Tanzanian unit of Kenya's ARM Cement has been sold to China's Huaxin Cement, according to its administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Huaxin is expected to invest US$116m into Maweni Limestone Ltd to settle liabilities and another US$30m to complete a plant construction and upgrade.

"Securing a suitable investor with the ability to make the requisite investments and inject much-needed capital to boost Maweni's operations [...] was a top priority [...] given Maweni's dire financial situation," said Muniu Thoiti, one of the PWC administrators.

ARM Cement was put under administration in 2018 by some of its creditors over a US$190m debt and its shares were suspended from the Nairobi bourse. In Tanzania, the company has around 1.6Mta of capacity from two plants.