Starting the first day of December 2024, a Sunday, the cool dry wind of Harmattan in Nigeria had begun to take shape and off this background, the Switzerland-based multinational building solutions company Holcim Group, for an equity value of $1 billion agreed to sell all its 83.81 percent shareholding in Lafarge Africa Plc, which means an installed cement production capacity of 10.5 million tons per annum will go into Chinese hands.

It is the 1907-founded Huaxin Cement Ltd that the power of control will be shifting to. This East Asian business, established five years before the Swizz already has a footprint in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Zimbabwe, which possibly makes it a good fit.

Holcim’s announcement of its decision yesterday via a website statement was negligibly generous with information compared to a letter by Lafarge Africa Plc’s company secretary Adewunmi Alode to the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) which mainly brightened the room.

We refer to our announcement dated 30th November 2024 notifying the Nigerian Exchange Limited (“NGX”) and the investing public of the emergency meeting of the Board of Directors of Lafarge, which began the official note dated 1 December.

At this emergency meeting, which considers a decision to sell as subject to regulatory approval from the authorities, separate shareholders conceding to passing on their rights drove up the value of the Holcim stake to 83.81 percent.

Lafarge Africa Plc was incorporated in Nigeria on 24 February 1959 and was listed as a publicly quoted company on the country’s exchange 40 years after.

The cement producer over all the decades in the country has secured four plants – two are located in Ogun State in the southwest, while the remaining half are in the southeast and northeast regions.

Detailing how the decision to transfer Swiss assets to the Chinese came to be, company secretary Alode said the Board considered communications received from Lafarge’s largest shareholders, Caricement B.V (“Caricement”) and Associated International Cement Limited (“AICL”) informing the Board of the following: Caricement’s sole shareholder, Holderfin B.V, part of the Holcim Group, has reached agreement with Hainan Huaxin Pan-Africa Investment Co. Limited and Huaxin (Hong Kong) International Holdings Limited, part of Huaxin Cement, pursuant to which they will acquire respectively full ownership of Caricement and a second entity, Davis Peak Holdings Limited, which will hold the shares held currently by AICL.

If regulatory approvals in Nigeria come in time, the deal is expected to close in 2025. Another cement company redirecting investments is Dangote Cement, also part of a group.

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While Lafarge executives were sending out a notification to the NGX about an intention to sell, by evening time yesterday, Africa’s richest man, Mr Aliko Dangote was readying deals in Angola.

According to a tweet posted via Dangote Group’s X profile, the President of Angola, João Lourenço and its President and Chief Executive Mr Dangote had been meeting.

The pair were revealed during an investment meeting of building cement factories, oil block acquisition in Luanda, Angola. Dangote’s cement investments in other countries had long been going on though – it is the eyes on petroleum exploration that is something new.

Angola’s National Oil, Gas & Biofuels Agency (ANPG) plans to launch a limited tender in Q1 2025, offering 10 blocks in the Kwanza and Benguela Basins – including 5 marginal fields – and analysts say this is a first.

Since the Dangote Petrochemical Complex launched last May and started production three months ago, it has faced crude oil supply challenges. Based on past shortages, the radar shows what the Dangote Industries Limited is really in dire need of is more oil because it can’t get enough.

ALSO READ: Why is Dangote backing out of his future steel investment plan?

Meiza Nigeria