“PPC is pleased to advise of the successful acquisition of the Industrial Development Corporation’s 20% stake in Ethiopian-based Habesha Cement Share Company (HCSCo) for a purchase consideration of US$13 million (R143,8 million),” the group said in a statement.
The cement company bought its first 27% stake in the Ethiopian company two years ago, in July 2012, when it made a joint acquisition into HCSCo with the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) to get a combined 47% stake in the Ethiopian company. Now PPC owns a controlling 51% stake into HCSCo, and the remaining 49% will continue to be held by over 16 000 local Ethiopian shareholders. The IDC had at the time paid $9 million (R99,5 million) for the 20% stake in Ethiopia’s first cement share company.
PPC’s recently appointed executive chairman, Bheki Sibiya, said in a statement: “We are very excited about our increased investment in Ethiopia; a country with a population of 91 million people that is set to reach 100 million by 2018 and having a growth rate that is expected to remain above 8% in the medium term.”
HCSCo’s construction of a 1,4 million tonnes per annum facility located 35km north-west of Addis Ababa, the bustling capital city of Ethiopia, is already underway. The costs of building this factory are calculated to be about $135 million (R1,4 billion) and the plant is expected to operational by 2016.
“This Acquisition will provide further momentum to our growth strategy on the continent. PPC has, in addition to the HCSCo project, signed EPC contracts for projects in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zimbabwe, all with construction underway,” said Sibiya.
The acquisition is expected to be concluded next month (December 2014) once all conditions of the transaction are satisfied.
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