Dangote Cement Sees Second-Quarter Sales Growth on Gain in April

By Chris Kay, Bloomberg News

April 30, 2013

Dangote Cement PLC (DANGCEM), Nigeria’s largest company and Africa’s biggest producer of the building material, said second-quarter revenue will total 98.5 billion naira ($623.3 million) as demand was “strong” this month.

Pretax profit will amount to 50.6 billion naira, the Lagos- based company said today in an e-mailed statement. First-quarter net income advanced 81 percent to 53.7 billion naira as the tonnage sold increased 38 percent.

Dangote Cement, owned by billionaire Chairman Aliko Dangote, has production capacity of 19.3 million metric tons in Nigeria, with plans to increase that to 29 million tonnes by 2015. The second-quarter revenue forecast would be a 26 percent jump from a year earlier, when the company posted 77.9 billion naira in sales, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“The year has begun well for Dangote Cement and our 38 percent increase in volumes far outpaced the Nigerian market’s strong growth of 16 percent,” Chief Executive Officer Devakumar Edwin said in the statement. “Our gas supply has been better this year, and that has driven margins upwards from the first quarter of 2012,” when two plants at the Nigerian locations of Ibese and Obajana were starting operations.

A new plant in Senegal was unable to start production as scheduled in the quarter because of a dispute over the land title, Dangote Cement said. The company said it’s working on an “acceptable solution” to the dispute that would allow the site to begin operations within weeks.

Dangote Cement released figures after the Lagos market closed. The stock gained 2.6 percent to 160.12 naira today. The shares have risen 25 percent this year, outpacing the 19 percent increase in the Nigerian Stock Exchange All-Share Index. (NGSEINDX)

To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Kay in Abuja at ckay5@bloomberg.net