Business
Dubai Investment Fund buys a 1.4% stake in Dangote Cement
Aliko Dangote – Founder and Chairman of the Dangote Group
Sovereign fund Investment Corp of Dubai (ICD) has bought a 1.4 percent stake in Dangote Cement, Nigeria’s biggest company by market capitalization, for US$300 million, a Dangote spokesman said on Monday.
Stockbrokers in Lagos told reporters that 243 million shares of Dangote Cement were transferred to ICD, which holds stakes in some of the emirate’s top companies, at US$1.23 each, a 12 percent premium to Dangote Cement’s price of around US$1.37 on Monday.
“ICD is diversifying its portfolio into the West African market through a minority stake in Dangote Cement. We believe this bodes well for future investments into Nigeria from the Middle East,” Akinbamidele Akintola, an Africa equity sales executive at Renaissance Capital, said.
Dangote Cement, owned by Aliko Dangote, is expanding and plans to roll out cement plants across Africa to reach an annual 62 million tonnes capacity by 2017, up from a projected 42 million tonnes this year.
It reported pretax profit of US$659.4 million in the first half, down 0.57 percent from a year ago, on revenues of US$1.29 billion.
Shares in Dangote cement, which make up a third of Nigeria’s stock market and hit a record high of US$1.54 in July, traded flat at US$1.38 on Monday, valuing Nigeria’s biggest company at about US$24.5 billion.
Dangote Cement faces competition in Africa from French cement maker Lafarge which is combining its Nigerian and South African businesses to accelerate growth on the continent.
