ASEC to sell ASEC Minya Cement, ASEC Ready Mix

Qalaa Holdings announced yesterday that its business unit ASEC Cement has signed a sale and purchase agreement for the sale of its holdings in subsidiaries ASEC Minya Cement and ASEC Ready Mix Co – representing 46.5 and 55 per cent, respectively – to Qena Cement for total consideration of c.EGP1bn (US$124.5m).

The financial close is expected to take place on or before 20 November 2015. Qalaa Holdings and its subsidiary National Development and Trading Company (NDT) own 70 per cent of ASEC Cement. ASEC Minya Cement is an Egyptian cement producer located in Upper Egypt which commenced commercial operations in August 2013 with a name plate capacity of 2Mta. Meanwhile, ASEC Ready Mix is a producer and distributor of ready mix concrete, the company operates six batching plants in Upper Egypt with production in FY14 reaching 382,000m3.

In addition to the Qalaa sale proceeds, the sale of ASEC Minya & Ready-mix will help accelerate the delivery of Qalaa's strategy, with a key element being deleveraging at the holding and platform company levels — a total of c.EGP940m in debt will be deconsolidated at the ASEC Cement consolidated level owing to the transaction.