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At the instance of court-ordered meeting, shareholders of Ashaka cement that missed initial opportunity for Ashaka cement share swap with Lafarge Africa PLC shares have unanimously voted in favour of swap deal.
At an extraordinary court ordered Meeting ( EGM) that held on Monday in Abuja, Ashaka cement shareholders voted in favour of the resolution authorising the exchange of total of 302,045,793 ordinary shares of 50 kobo each held by minority shareholders for shares in Lafarge Africa. With the resolution for share swap, each holder will receive 57 Lafarge Africa shares for every 202 Ashaka Cement shares as at delisting date at N2 per share.
Speaking with Journalists on the import of shares swap, Acting Chairman of Ashaka Cement PLC, Edith Onwuchekwa said the swap deal had been on the card. “We were actually talking about the share swap after the delisting had happened sometime in July last year, for shareholders who don’t have the opportunity to gain the liquidity of their investment. With the share swap which was approved at this EGM , they have the opportunity to do that. Secondly, they can participate in Lafarge Africa PLC which is a bigger company,” she said.
On how the cement firm was able to maintain smooth operations amidst insurgent crisis instigated by members of Boko- Harram, she said government is giving the company full support. “It has been challenging, sometimes we had Boko-Haram attack but government has substantially supported us and were even named as a critical national asset. So with that, we have more confidence and we are able to consider an expansion of Ashaka because of the confidence we have in the security agencies that the government has supported us with”.
Acting board Chairman of Ashaka Cement PLC noted that, going forward, the firm is constructing a new power plant.
“We still have a prospect for Ashaka. Currently we are building a 16mw coal fired power plant at Ashaka cement. Once that is done, it will help in electrification of plant and also contribute to maximization of energy cost,” she added.
On his part, Managing Director of cement firm, Rabiu Umar said all the stakeholders were carried along in share swap arrangement.
“Indeed we carried all stakeholders along both from regulatory perspectives, the core stakeholders, the communities all the people we work with.
“Is purely a corporate issue, that has no impact on day to day operations. We still have the plant, is going to remain there , we still have the brand – Ashaka is going to remain; we have a board of Directors from structure perspective. This is just a scheme of arrangement , a scheme of merger. So there is a clear distinction between the two,” he clarified.
Umar added that, the plan to increase the plant capacity is still afoot. “The plan is still on ground. We have project where by we are going to unlock capacity from an existing plant as step one. Then step two would be subject to market forces , looking at bigger plan is beneficial”, he said.
