Lagos — Nigeria’s two largest cement makers are turning to investors to help kick-start growth and take advantage of strengthening Sub-Saharan African economies and infrastructure spending, including in their home market. This month, lawmakers in Nigeria approved a 2018 budget of 9.1-trillion naira ($25bn), the nation’s biggest spending plan yet, with almost a third of it going into roads, rail, ports and power. President Muhammadu Buhari still has to sign it. In SA, where both Dangote Cement and Lafarge Africa also have operations, fixed investment expanded in the last quarter of 2017 as sentiment started to change in the run-up to President Cyril Ramaphosa winning control of the ANC and becoming president in February. Dangote, controlled by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, said last month that it’s looking to raise $500m from a eurobond sale and will also issue 300-billion naira in local-currency bonds to refinance debt and boost expansion. That’s before a proposed London init...
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