NASCON Allied Industries Plc, the salt-making arm of the conglomerate Dangote Industries Limited, will contemplate a business combination with two other food companies in the group during a meeting of its directors’ board later this month.
The marriage is expected to unite the salt-maker with
Dangote Sugar, owners of sub-Saharan Africa’s largest sugar refinery, and
Dangote Rice into a single entity, according to a regulatory filing on
Thursday.
Both NASCON and Dangote Sugar are listed in Lagos, while
Dangote Rice is not quoted yet. Dangote Industries Limited is the holding
company for a raft of firms majority-owned by Africa’s wealthiest man Aliko
Dangote.
The planned merger is coming some 31 months after the
group’s fiercest rival, BUA Group, announced a similar move consolidating its
food businesses – rice, sugar, flour, edible oils and flour – into a new
company known as BUA Foods.
BUA Foods would go on to list on the Nigerian Exchange and
is currently Nigeria’s biggest consumer goods company by market value, worth
over N2.4 trillion as of market open on Thursday and N649.6 billion in total
assets as of 31 March.
BUA Group is controlled by Abdul Samad Rabiu, Nigeria’s
second-richest person and Africa’s fourth-wealthiest.
Dangote Sugar and NASCON opened trade respectively on
Thursday at a market capitalisation of N329.8 billion and N70.2 billion.
The two had total assets estimated at N558.9 billion and
N59.2 billion as of the end of March.
Dangote Group’s biggest bet is the 650,000 barrels per day
oil refinery in Lekki, Lagos, commissioned in May and said to have cost $19
billion.
BUA Group is also building a refinery in Akwa Ibom State
with a capacity to process 200,000 barrels of crude daily, expected to come on
board by 2025.