Dangote May Purchase South Africa Largest Cement Maker

Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, is among those considering counter-offers for PPC Group Limited that could signal a bidding contest for South Africa’s largest cement maker, according to reports.
Dangote Cement Plc sees a bid for the Johannesburg-based company as a way to accelerate expansion outside its home market of Nigeria, the people, who asked not to be named as the matter is private, told Bloomberg on Friday.

PPC will consider any rival offers to the joint approach by Canada’s Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited and domestic rival, AfriSam Group Pty Limited, and present them to shareholders in early October, one of the people said. PPC shares jumped by 2.9 per cent to 6.38 rand as of 3:30pm in Johannesburg on Friday, on track for the highest on a closing basis since April 25. 

That values the company at 10.2 billion rand ($792m). LafargeHolcim Limited, the world’s biggest cement maker based in Jona, Switzerland, and Germany’s HeidelbergCement AG are also monitoring PPC’s situation, the people said. Titan Cement Co. SA of Greece is looking at the South African company, according to one of the people. 

The cement makers’ interest was sparked after Toronto-based Fairfax offered to buy 2 billion rand of PPC’s shares and support a merger with AfriSam earlier this week, the people said. The proposal “significantly undervalued” the business, PPC said at the time. Spokespeople for Dangote, LafargeHolcim, HeidelbergCement, Titan, Fairfax and PPC declined to comment. The future ownership of PPC is up for grabs after merger talks wdaith AfriSam failed for a second time last month following two-and-a-half years of on-off negotiations. Both companies have been struggling with high debt levels, which Fairfax offered to resolve with its unexpected entrance to the saga this week. 

– Bloomberg