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The Dangote Group has invited tenders from members of the public for the construction of Dangote Peugeot Automobile Assembly plant to be located at Dutse, along the Kaduna-Abuja expressway, Kaduna, about 25 kilometers away from the present location of PAN Limited assembly plant in Kakuri industrial zone of Kaduna State.
Dangote Peugeot Automobiles Nigeria Limited (DPAN) is a joint venture between Dangote Industries Limited, Kaduna State government and Peugeot of France (PSA Groupe) set up to construct and operate an automobile assembly plant in Kaduna State.
The scope of work for plant when fully completed will comprise of an assembly plant, the administrative block, external works and services/landscaping (including testing tracks, drivers and parking, external services and ancillary buildings that will include power generating house and a gate house.
The planned construction of the new Dangote Peugeot Automobiles in Dutse, Kaduna State raises fresh questions on the status of the proposed sale of the existing PAN Nigeria Limited to private investors which is presently under the management of Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) with the end of 2018 as timeline to hand all assets and liabilities of the auto assembly plant over to a new owner.
It would be recalled before this latest development, the Federal Government had since 2015 engaged in discussions with prospective investors, but as at the time of filing this report, report of such behind-closed-doors discussions has not been made public on which companies or consortium emerged as highest bidder for the Peugeot assembly plant.
Last week Monday, BusinessDay got a response from AMCON on the reasons for the protracted delay in announcing the result of the bid for the sale of PAN Limited to the preferred bidder.
In his response, Jude Nwuzor, Head of Corporate Communications of AMCON told our reporter that, the process of divestment can sometimes be long and winding. It is an on-going transaction, which would be announced to the public at the right time.
‘’ We have transactional experts working on the matter and their mandate is to get the best option for AMCON. We get bidders for most of the assets in our portfolio all the time. But as you know, bidders must match their bids with action,’’ he stated.
When prodded to provide more details on the identity of the reserved bidders of PAN Nigeria Limited, the AMCON spokesman said, ‘’In all sincerity, we have non-disclosure agreement in our processes just to avoid unnecessary influences and pressures. So we do not disclose issues such as this until our transactional advisers conclude their assignment. Once they do, we will publicise the result (s).
Checks by BusinessDay reveal that the sum of N11 billion was put on the table as take-over bid amount for the assembly plant by a consortium of Dangote Industries, PSA Groupe of France and the Kaduna State government and others.
However, the N11 billion was said not to have met the threshold to convince the Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) to sell the Peugeot assembly plant. The consortium were however not guided in the transaction as to the basic acceptable ceiling price.
MIKE OCHONMA
