Arabian Cement Company (ACC) is eyeing expansion into regional markets in Africa and Asia to boost its profitability amid fierce competition in the Egyptian market, a senior company official told Daily News Egypt.
“We are trying to find new customers in different regional markets to boost our revenues. These markets include countries in Africa and Asia,” the source, who requested not to be named, added.
The company has so far exported cement to Libya, Yemen, Kenya, Madagascar, and Somalia.
Located in Suez governorate, Egypt, the company produces approximately 5m tonnes of cement annually—10% of Egypt’s production—and was listed on the Egyptian Exchange on 18 May 2014.
The company is a joint venture between Grupo Cementos La Unión, a Spanish investor holding the majority of shares, and a group of Egyptian investors.
In less than 10 years in the Egyptian market, ACC has become one of the top performers in the industry, as it now owns the fourth-largest cement plant in Egypt.
The company recently reached an agreement with the National Bank of Egypt to reschedule a $30.9m loan earlier received by the former.
Under the agreement, the loan shall be repaid in 15 quarterly installments of $2m each, with a debt rate on foreign currencies of 5% above the LIBOR margin.
The installments will be fully paid off by 1 July 2021, a company statement said.
The financing was used to build an ACC production facility, which applies advanced and environmentally-friendly technologies to manufacture high-quality cement.
ACC posted a net profit of EGP 167.6m in the period starting 1 January 2017 and ending 30 September 2017, compared with EGP 157.6m in the same period of 2016.
Further, the net profit for Q3 2017 rose to EGP 95.9m, compared with EGP 14.5m for the same quarter in 2016, recording a huge hike of 561%.
