By Lauretta Akpan
Lafarge Africa Plc notified The Nigerian Stock Exchange that Nigerian Cement Holdings B.V. (NCH), a 50% affiliate of Lafarge Africa Plc, has completed the acquisition of the second and final tranche of 15% of equity interest of Flour Mills of Nigeria Cement Industries in UNICEM.
The company in March acquired first 15% tranche stake in UNICEM, bringing NCH’s stake in UNICEM to 85%, NCH.
Accordingly, NCH now owns 100% of UNICEM and consequently Lafarge Africa Plc now owns 50% of the equity of UNICEM.
Lafarge Africa stated that UNICEM’s operational office is located in Calabar and its manufacturing plant in Mfamosing, Cross Rivers State.
It currently has a cement production capacity of 2.5Mtpa and is developing a second production line of 2.5Mtpa.
The second production line is targeted to be commissioned in 2016 to bring UNICEM’s total production capacity to 5.0Mtpa.
The board of Lafarge Africa Plc had in November 2014 approved the initial agreement by NCH to buy out minority stake in UNICEM and make the Calabar-based cement company a wholly-owned subsidiary of NCH.
Regulatory filing obtained from the Exchange at the time had shown that the acquisition was expected to be fully consummated on or before February 2016.
NCH had earlier that month entered into an agreement with Flour Mills of Nigeria, defining a roadmap to the purchase of Flour Mills’ 30 per cent investment in Unicem.
The transaction had been priced within a range of between N47bn and N55bn, depending primarily on the effective dates of payment and prevailing dollar-Naira exchange rate at the time of payment.