Lafarge Africa Plc., a leading cement and building solutions provider, has released details of the outlook for its business in 2016.
The CEO, Peter Hoddinott, said that the company remains bullish about Nigerian growth potential, adding that Lafarge Africa will continue to deliver “good performance with significant upsides to come as new cement and power generation capacities come on stream and synergy benefits from the merger in Nigeria flow through.
“Our business integration process has been successful and as a Company we are optimistic to deliver improving performances in 2016 and beyond, improving value to our shareholders,” he said.
According to him, the integration of LafargeHocim businesses in Nigeria will drive efficiencies and ultimately generate synergy savings of N9 billion for the group by mid-2018. The cost of borrowing for the companies will also reduce by 4%.
According to the statement, the overall Nigerian cement market is foreseen to grow robustly in 2016 behind a strong Individual Home Building Segment.
The Federal Government of Nigeria has also shown strong indications to support infrastructure growth in the coming year.
Lafarge Africa will be able to leverage its unique footprint in 2016 with Ashaka returning to growth, ReadyMix securing high volume contracts to support its eight existing, and new plants to be commissioned as well as the new 2.5 million tons cement line due to be commissioned in Mfamosing in H2.
Overall, the Lafarge Africa group says it will continue to seek innovative ways of improving product offerings in the Nigerian cement, concrete and aggregate market in 2016.
“In the South Africa market, Lafarge Africa will leverage the 2015 investments within the cement operations with a revamped sales team and route to market.
“In aggregates, the company will continue to benefit from its strong network delivering results with two new quarries, being opened in the Gauteng market and Ready-Mix growth. Overall, new strategies in penetrating retail, new geographies and the technical segment are expected to allow Lafarge Africa volumes to grow above a flat market in all three product lines.
“Lafarge Africa will also consolidate on initiatives which have recently driven growth. This includes the Key Distribution Scheme, a strong route to market scheme which has been critical to sales and revenue growth in South West Nigeria.
“Across its factories and product and solutions portfolio, Lafarge Africa PLC will focus on improving on its solid capacity utilization performance in 2016.”
