Displaying items by tag: Lafarge Africa

Nigeria: AshakaCem, a subsidiary of Lafarge Africa and member of the LafargeHolcim group, has appointed Alhaji Rabiu Abdullahi Umar as its new managing director. AshakaCem said in a statement that Umar was appointed to succeed Leonard Palka, a Polish national, who has resigned from the company.

AshakaCem in Gombe State is one of the four cement companies controlled by Lafarge Africa in Nigeria. Formerly the companies were known as Lafarge Cement WAPCO Nigeria before the name was changed in 2014.

Nigeria: Lafarge Africa is marketing a US$302m bond to refinance some of the US Dollar-denominated debt held by its subsidiary United Company of Nigeria (UNICEM), which it bought in 2015. Chief finance officer Anders Kristiansson said that there was strong interest for the bond and that book-building was expected to open in the second week of May 2016.

The cement maker said it had received approval from Nigeria's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a US$500m bond, but will issue US$302m for five-years. "We are in the process of restructuring the UNICEM debt,” explained Kristiansson. "We want to refinance the US Dollar borrowings that we have in UNICEM."

Malawi: The government of Malawi has defended its decision to introduce licences for cement importers saying there is no ban on importing the building material. Ministry of Industry and Trade spokesperson, Wiskes Mkombezi said that the government was issuing the licences to protect consumers in a monopolised local industry and to prevent smuggling. He added that the licences were to regulate and bring ‘sanity’ to the industry according to All Africa.

Local cement producers have complained about the import licences. Directors with Cement Products Limited and Lafarge have claimed that imports of cement are threatening local jobs in the country.

Africa: Lafarge Africa Plc has reported a profit after tax of US$146m for the first nine months of 2015, compared with US$156m recorded in the corresponding of 2014.

The company said that Ashaka Cement's results were affected by unrest during the start of 2015 and that Ashaka Cement has since returned to normal operations. It added that industrial performance was strong, with stable plant operations across the board. The South African business continues to be cash generative. However, a volume slow down impacted the profit, with after tax profit from consolidated operations declining by 67% to US$17.6m in the third quarter of 2015. Lafarge Africa said that United Cement, which was included on an equity basis, brought the post tax profit to US$16.6m.

Lafarge Africa concluded the second tranche of the acquisition of Four Mills of Nigeria's 15% stake in Unicem. This brings Lafarge Africa's ownership stake in Unicem to 50%, while LafargeHolcim owns the remaining 50%. The acquisition has brought about an expansion in the Lafarge Africa scope in Nigeria.

"In spite of the challenging business environment and competitive situation, our company has delivered a good performance during the year. Our business expansion is remarkable and we are optimistic that our company will continue to deliver strong value to our shareholders," said the CEO of Lafarge Africa, Peter Hoddinott. According to him, Lafarge Africa will continue to leverage its strong brands, technological advantage and support from the global group. The expansion plans are on track, with Unicem's second line set to come on stream in 2016.

Nigeria: An affiliate of Lafarge Africa, Nigerian Cement Holdings (NCH), has completed a 100% acquisition of Nigeria's third-largest cement manufacturer United Cement Company of Nigeria (UNICEM). Lafarge did not disclose the purchase price. NCH owned 70% equity in UNICEM before agreeing to the deal in November 2014 to buy the remaining 30% from Flour Mills. UNICEM cement plant in Cross River has a production capacity of 2.5Mt/yr and is undergoing an expansion to 5Mt/yr, to be completed in 2016.

Nigeria: The Ogun State Government, in partnership with the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) and Lafarge Africa, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the joint development of the Ogun State Forest Landscape Restoration Project.

The MOU would enable the creation of a legal entity to develop the project, engage development agencies and climate change funds and promote it to large agriculture and forestry investors. At maturity, the project is set to transform 1080km² of heavily degraded land into an arable green area. It is designed to employ innovative approaches to achieve best-of-breed environmental, social and economic results. The scheme's uniqueness rests in the way it combines land restoration with business development objectives by applying the latest findings of agro-ecology and agroforestry.

The first part of the area will be rehabilitated through mixed reforestation to provide biodiversity hotspot corridors, allowing nomadic herders to cross the area with their herds and encouraging subsistence farming. The other part is expected to be leased to agro-industrial investors interested in the development of large-scale tree crop such as cocoa, coffee, rubber and oil palm as well as annual crops such as maize, sesame, cotton and cassava, among others. Forestry projects within strict social and environmental guidelines may also be considered.

"The restoration and enhancement of our forests benefits the environment and creates jobs in rural communities," said Ogun State governor Ibikunle Amosun. "Increasing the pace and scale of restoration is critically needed to address a variety of threats, including fire, climate change, deforestation and others, for the benefit of our ecosystems and forest-dependent communities. This project will show that enterprise and achieving strong mitigation are mutually supportive in tropical agriculture."

Group managing director/CEO of Lafarge Africa, Peter Hoddinott, said that the organisation's strong commitment to environment and social sustainability in its areas of operations had led the company to naturally support the Ogun State project. Promising a strong positive impact on the issues, Hoddinott said that the use of agro-ecology and agro-forestry principles in the projects would increase the company's productivity, ensure the land becomes one of Nigeria's best carbon capture areas and generate biomass waste that Lafarge intends to use to fire its cement kilns.

Nigeria: Lafarge Africa has reported that its pre-tax profit rose by 13% year-on-year to US$149m in the first six months of 2015, according to Reuters. Its turnover in the first six months of 2015 increased to US$586m from US$523m in the same period of 2014. Its finance and investment income rose to US$17.6m from US$8.59m in 2014.

Nigeria: The Ogun State Government has entered into partnership with Lafarge Africa on sustainable waste management towards the generation of renewable energy and youth employment, according to All Africa.

"This initiative will help clear our waste and make us live more healthily. With this sustainable waste management solution, we would generate much-needed energy and employment opportunities for our youths," said governor Ibikunle Amosun during a visit to the Saje dump site in Abeokuta. He added that there are plans to set up a dump site in each of the three Senatorial Districts of Ogun.

New Lafarge Africa CEO Peter Hoddinott expressed deep conviction that the combustible and recyclable energy would bring a new lease of life to the people, as well as improve the economy of the state.

Africa: Lafarge Africa has appointed Peter Hoddinott as the new group managing director / CEO. The former CEO, Guillaume Roux, will remain on the board as a director, according to the Kuwait News Agency

Hoddinott is a British mining engineer and started his business career in the mines of southern Africa before joining Blue Circle in 1988. Prior to this appointment, he worked as a lecturer in Imperial College of Science and Technology, London University in 1983 - 1988. While at Blue Circle, he worked in the Technical Centre and also managed the UK cement plants before going to the Philippines as CEO in 1999. When Lafarge took over Blue Circle, he stayed in Manila to integrate the two companies, leaving in 2003 to become regional president for Lafarge in Latin America. In 2007, Hoddinott became regional president for Western Europe (cement), including Morocco. In 2012, he became executive vice president (energy and strategic sourcing) responsible for worldwide energy strategy and sourcing of Lafarge's US$12bn/yr externally sourced inputs. Hoddinott was appointed group executive vice president (performance). He is currently president of Cembureau.

Nigeria: The chairman of Ashaka Cement, Mallam Suleiman Yahyah, has said that the performance of the company in 2014 showed the resilience of the management and commitment of its parent firm, Lafarge Africa, to sustenance of investment in the north eastern part of the country. Despite losing US$7.54m to insurgents attack in 2014, Ashaka Cement ended the year with a profit after tax of US$22.9m, up from US$14.2m in 2013.

"We have embarked on the expansion of our cement production capacity to 4Mt/yr. The expansion will comprise debottlenecking of the existing line and installation of new line," said Yahyah. He added that Ashaka Cement's target is to achieve 95% coal substitution and to introduce a major corporate social responsibility (CSR) schemes that will help the community with agricultural development.