The entire minority shareholdings were valued at N7.68 billion at Ashaka Cement’s closing price of N19.56 per share yesterday at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).
A regulatory filing signed by company secretary, Ashaka Cement Plc, Zainab Umaru, filed at the NSE yesterday indicated that Lafarge Africa, which holds the majority equity stake in Ashaka Cement, had secured the approval of SEC to proceed with the tender offer.
Already, the board of Lafarge Africa has notified the board of Ashaka Cement of its intention to proceed with the tender offer to all minority shareholders of the company.
If successful, the tender offer will make Ashaka Cement a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lafarge Africa Plc, and may lead to delisting of the cement company from the NSE. The board of Lafarge Africa was silent on the post tender-offer status of Ashaka Cement as well as the terms of this new tender offer.
The latest tender offer is the second attempt by Lafarge to buy over the entire shares held by minority shareholders. It had earlier launched a mandatory tender offer (MTO) to acquire the 41.4 per cent equity stake held then in Ashaka Cement by minority shareholders immediately after the 2014 consolidation of Lafarge’s cement businesses in Nigeria and South Africa to form Lafarge Africa Plc. The MTO recorded partial success, reducing minority equity stakes in Ashaka Cement to 17.54 per cent, which Lafarge Africa now seeks to acquire.
