Dangote Cement Pushes Ahead With London IPO Plan

• Dangote Cement Pushes Ahead With London IPO Plan

The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dangote Cement Plc, Aliko Dangote, says Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Standard Chartered Bank could be among the banks to organise the 2019 London public listing of Dangote Cement.

Dangote, when asked by Reuters who the bankers could be for the Initial Public Offering, was quoted in part as saying, “The usual ones ― Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Standard Chartered Bank.”

Media reported on February 17, 2018 that the company revived plans for a share sale in London that could raise about $1bn.

The Nigerian company had approached investment bankers to discuss a potential United Kingdom listing, saying once banks were appointed, it would probably take at least five months to complete the process.

The cement maker was also reported to have considered issuing a debut Eurobond, according to two different people familiar with the matter.

The sources said discussions were ongoing and a listing of Africa’s biggest cement maker might not go ahead, Bloomberg reported.

Speaking at the Financial Times Africa summit, Dangote added the listing would go ahead in 2019 after the Nigerian elections, but he could not say when exactly.

Bloomberg reported in July that Dangote Cement might carry out its long-planned listing of shares in London after Nigerian elections early next year, as it considered expansion through takeovers.

“We are working on it and we’ll look at it in 2019. We have grown to this extent mostly via greenfield investments. To grow much more, we’d probably have to do it via acquisitions,” Edwin Devakumar, group executive director at Dangote Industries Limited, was quoted as saying in an interview in Lagos.

He said a number of banks had approached the company to arrange the IPO, though none had been mandated and there had been no decision about how much to raise.