Lafarge Africa to raise 25 bln naira in commercial paper

Lafarge Africa, the local unit of Franco-Swiss group LafargeHolcim plans to issue 25 billion naira in a commercial paper on Monday as part of a 60 billion naira programme, a senior company official has said.
The company also intends to raise 131.65 billion naira in a rights issue from existing shareholders subject to the approval of capital market regulators. It has filed a request for approval with the market regulators and expecting approval soon.
Lafarge, which announced a loss of 40.37 billion naira last year due to foreign exchange debt said the capital and debt issuance are parts of its bids to refinance its outstanding debt.
The company, however, reurned to profit at the end of its nine months financial year, posting a pretax profit of 1.09 billion naira .
Lafarge has invested mainly in Nigeria where it has around 11 million tonnes capacity with another 4 million tonnes in South Africa. It started exports to Ghana in the third quarter.
Already, the parent firm LafargeHolcim has expressed support for the planned capital raise promised to subscribe to its shares including converting its quasi-equity in the company to ordinary shares.
The company outstanding debt stood around 225 billion naira and with the plan capital raise it may cut back on its indebtedness to below 200 billion naira.