Oman’s Raysut Cement Company has expressed a $100 millon interest to administrators of the ailing ARM Cement as part of its investment strategy to triple its production capacity to 20 million tonnes (mt) per annum from the present 6mt.
The ARM bid is one of the dozens of opportunities that Raysut has set $700 million war chest for, including seeking to acquire Kampala Cement. It is currently setting up a grinding unit in Somaliland and Mogadishu, Somalia, with a Dubai-based partner, and is planning to build a 1 mt cement plant in Berbera, Somalia.
The aggressive move is part of the company’s aggressive strategy to expand in East and Central Africa.
“We are looking to becoming a global company by way of expansion, and moving with a major focus on East and Central Africa and Georgia,” Joey Ghose, Rayut’s chief executive, was quoted by The Hindu Business Line.
Rayut holds a majority stake in Pioneer Cement Industries Georgia.
ARM Cement is a producer and major supplier of cement in the East African region. In August 2018, PwC’s Muniu Thoiti and George Weru took over the cement maker as its administrators after a series of losses that saw it post Ksh6.5 billion losses in 2017, and its short-term liabilities exceeding current assets by Ksh13.4 billion.
Raysut Cement is one of the major clinker suppliers to the East African region and the ARM assets will fit very well with its plans for East Africa where in the last quarter alone it supplied over 300,000 tonnes of clinker from its home plant at Salalah, Oman to Kenya and Tanzania.
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