BADGER
MICHAEL AVERY: Afrimat is stuck in tribunal’s cement boots
It is starting to look suspiciously like another opportunistic hatchet job to extract rents
Reading through Afrimat’s terse Sens announcement last week updating shareholders on its attempt to acquire Lafarge from Holcim, all is not as it first seems. Eyebrows are being raised at the Competition Tribunal’s foot-dragging after a few dissenting voices objected to the deal — including Nchakha Moloi, former mineral resources & energy deputy director-general turned ambitious business person, and Stuart Burns, a small-time ready-mix concrete player in the Western Cape.
Under deal making CEO Andries van Heerden, Afrimat has earned a reputation for eyeing value-accretive deals and executing ruthlessly to implement them. It started with diversification into industrial minerals with the acquisition of Glen Douglas dolomite quarry in 2011, followed by its first foray into the clinker market with the acquisition of SA Block Group in 2012. Afrimat acquired a controlling stake in listed industrial minerals producer Infrasors the next year, after which it took a few years to bed t...
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