Stocks of Nigeria cement manufacturing giant, Dangote Cement has gained 10% which has led to a corresponding 2.2% gain in the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All Share Index at the close of trading on Monday as investors bought into the company’s growth story.
Shares in the cement company, which is Nigeria’s largest stock by market value and makes up about 30 percent of the stock market, closed trading at N220 per share, giving it a market value of N3.578 trillion.
The NSE-ASI closed at 39,695.34 points and is up 41.37% year to date. The gains in Dangote Cement took returns in the stock to 84% in the past year.
Dangote Cement, Africa’s biggest producer of the building material, said in April 2013 that it plans to double annual total cement output to 55 million metric tonnes by 2015, boosted by new production plants in Cameroon, Zambia and South Africa.
The company reported in October that after-tax income for the nine months through September advanced to N154.9 billion ($974 million) from N105.5 billion a year earlier.
Dangote has positioned the company to take advantage of cement sales which are rising faster than nominal GDP growth rates.
Dangote Cement’s third-quarter revenue, however, rose 29% to N288.9 billion, as its cement sales in Nigeria gained 30% to 9.95 million metric tonnes.
