Shareholders of Larfarge Africa Plc have injected N132 billion through a rights issue. The rights issue is the biggest ever by a Nigerian company.
The company, last year announced its intentions to raise N131.65bn through a rights issue of about N3.1bn ordinary shares of 50 kobo each at N42.50 per share.
The new shares pre-allotted to existing shareholders on the basis of five new ordinary shares for every nine ordinary shares held at the close of business on November 1, 2017.
The acceptance list opened on Friday, November 24, 2017, and ran till the close of business on December 15, 2017.
In a regulatory filing at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), Lafarge indicated that it recorded a 100 per cent subscription to its recent N131.65bn rights issue. A total of 3, 577 acceptance forms were received for the 3,097,653,023 ordinary shares.
Lafarge will use part of the proceeds to cut its debt by around $270m, almost halving its foreign currency exposure.
Lafarge inherited $507m in shareholder loans and $88m of third-party foreign currency debt when it acquired Nigeria’s third largest cement manufacturer, United Cement Company of Nigeria (UNICEM), in 2015.
