Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest person, has again delayed plans to sell shares in his cement maker on the London Stock Exchange, opting instead to focus on increasing exports and boosting the Nigerian company’s foreign-exchange reserves.
Dangote Cement Plc, the continent’s biggest producer of the building material, isn’t expected to attempt a U.K. initial public offering until at least 2023, Temilade Aduroja, head of investor relations at the Lagos-based company, said by email.
“The London listing is not something which will happen in the short to medium term,” she said. “We are focused on our export strategy and increasing our foreign-currency revenue.”
Aliko Dangote, 63, who has a net worth of more than $14 billion, has long expressed his ambition for Dangote Cement to have a secondary London listing to diversify its ownership and gain access to cheaper funds on international markets. Yet for one reason or another he’s never managed to pull the trigger.
The controlling shareholder said in 2018 the listing would happen the following year, only for Brian Egan, former chief financial officer, to state that 2020 was more likely.
Nigeria’s biggest listed company by market value, Dangote Cement took advantage of a drop in yields in the domestic debt markets to raise 100 billion naira ($259 million) through commercial papers in May and April, the largest offering of its kind at the time.
The group said in July it’s looking to export clinker to 15 countries in Central and West Africa in a bid to boost revenue and resolve a scarcity of foreign exchange scarcity in Nigeria.
The company is expected to see volume expansion in the third quarter following the easing of restrictions across the continent, “which bodes well for margins as higher realized prices are expected in Nigeria and the Pan-African region,” Sonia Baldeira, senior industry analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence said in a note earlier this month.
