Dangote to list in London in 2019?

Dangote Cement is considering carrying out its long-planned listing of shares in London after the Nigerian presidential and parliamentary elections on 16 February 2019 and state government elections in March as it intends to expand through acquisitions, according to a report in Business Day.

"We are working on it and we’ll look at it in 2019," Edwin Devakumar, group executive director at Dangote Industries, said. "We have grown to this extent mostly via greenfield investments. To grow much more, we’d probably have to do it via acquisitions."

While a number of banks have approached the Nigerian cement producer to arrange the initial public offering (IPO), no decisions have been made to date. Currently, around 15 per cent of the company’s shares are listed in Lagos, where it has a market value of NGN3.9trn (USA$10.8bn).

It is not the first time the firm has considered a listing in London. In 2010 Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley helped to prepare a sales that was expected to raise as much as US$5bn before the step was abandoned.

The revival of the IPO plans led to Dangote Cement appointing former Xstrata CEO Mick Davis and Cherie Blair, a British lawyer, to its board in April. "That was another step toward the listing," said Mr Devakumar.