Beirut (APD) - The Cairo-based Misr Cement Company (Qena), denied media reports that the French-based Lafarge SA, the world's number one cement maker, is considering a $270 million takeover bid, sources at the Cairo & Alexandria Stock Exchanges said Sunday.
Bloomberg reported Sunday that Qena informed the Cairo & Alexandria Stock Exchanges that the report today in the independent business weekly Al-Mal was "untrue," said. No one at Qena's office in Cairo answered a telephone call seeking comment.
If Lafarge, which already controls two other Egyptian cement makers, Beni Suef Cement Company and Alexandria Portland Cement Company, were to buy Qena, it would become Egypt's third-largest cement producer by capacity.
Al Mal quoted Hamdy Zenhom, general manager for investment at the National Bank of Egypt, saying that Lafarge was mulling the possibility of buying Qena. He said a sale to the French company would rely on approval from Egypt's Investment Ministry as 40% of Qena is owned by the state.
Egypt's total cement production capacity rose 3.7% to 40.4 million tons a year in 2005 from the previous year, according to a June research note from Cairo-based brokerage Prime Securities. It said Qena accounts for 3.5% of the nation's total cement production capacity.
Qena closed 0.31% higher to LE 45.14 today on a volume of 108,630 shares traded. [FC]
© APD (Arab Press Digest) 2005
