BUA Cement Plc, one of Africa’s fastest-growing cement companies, has seen its market cap increase by more than $1 billion as investors resumed buying interest in its stock as shares in some publicly traded companies recovered from last month’s new bear market lows.
As a result of the recent increase in the market value of BUA Cement shares, Abdul Samad Rabiu, a Nigerian billionaire and industrialist who founded the cement company 14 years ago, has seen the market value of his stake in the firm increase by nearly $1 billion in the past 27 days.
BUA Cement, a Lagos-based cement firm that ranks as Nigeria’s second-largest cement company, operates with a combined installed capacity of 8 million tonnes per annum.
The cement company reported a profit of N61.36 billion ($147.7 million) in the first half of its fiscal year 2022, up 41.4 percent from the N43.4 billion ($104.5 million) that it had made at the end of the first half of 2021.
One of Africa’s richest billionaires, Rabiu derives the majority of his fortune from his 92-percent stake in BUA Cement. He indirectly owns the majority of the equity in the cement manufacturer through his manufacturing conglomerate, BUA Group.
According to data tracked by Billionaires.Africa, Rabiu has seen the market value of his stake in the cement company rise by N410.53 billion ($941 million) from N1.493 trillion ($3.42 billion) 27 days ago, to N1.904 trillion ($4.36 billion) at the time of drafting this report.
The billion-dollar surge in the market value of his stake was spurred by a 27.5-percent increase in the share price of the cement company, which rose from N47.85 ($0.11) per share on Sept. 23 to N61 ($0.14) per share on Oct. 20.
BUA Cement is considering obtaining a loan from the International Finance Corporation to expand its integrated cement plant in Kalambaina, Sokoto State, Nigeria, increasing capacity from 2 million tonnes per annum to 8 million tonnes per annum and developing ancillary utilities as part of its efforts to boost earnings and valuation.
