Nigeria’s Dangote Industries Limited has sold a 2.3% stake in Dangote Cement to foreign buyers in a stock market deal valued at 86.1 billion naira ($236 million).
The stock exchange confirmed the Tuesday’s sale, adding that a total of 416 million shares of Dangote Cement were traded at 210 naira in six off-market deals negotiated between Stanbic IBTC and Meristem stockbrokers, its spokesman said.
Dangote Cement, which makes up one third of the Nigerian bourse’s total market capitalisation, shed 0.68% on Tuesday, to value it at 3.79 trillion naira ($10.4 billion).
A banking source said Dangote Cement, owned by Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote and listed on the Lagos bourse in 2010 was yet to meet its minimum float requirement due to its heavy capitalisation which made finding a buyer tough.
Dangote has less than 10% free float as against the market’s requirement of 20%, the source added.
In 2013, Dangote Industries sold a 1.5% of its 95% stake in Africa’s biggest cement producer to South Africa’s Public Investment Corporation (PIC) for $289.3 million. Subsequently it sold a 1.4% stake to Sovereign fund Investment Corp of Dubai (ICD) for $300 million in 2014.
The company told Reuters in July it planned to invest about $4 billion over the next two to three years to nearly double its production capacity to 80 million tonnes in Africa.
Nigeria’s biggest listed company last week said its half-year pretax profit rose 24.6% to 155.58 billion naira ($426.3 million).
