Dangote Cement sets date for London capital markets day ahead of LSE listing

Dangote Cement Plc will hold a high-level engagement with investors and other capital market players in London next month to bring the foreign investing community up to speed with key corporate goals and direction in the lead-up to its secondary listing in the city.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest cement manufacturer told the Nigerian Exchange, where it already has a primary listing, on Wednesday, that its shareholders have assented to the proposal to host “a Capital Markets Day (CMD) in London on 21 September 2026.”

“The CMD will provide investors and other stakeholders with an update on the Company’s strategy, operations and business priorities, as well as an opportunity to engage with the Company’s senior management,” it added.

The move is the next phase of Dangote Cement’s bid to secure a quicker pathway to international capital and foreign investors than what a local listing in Lagos affords, using London as a window to the world.

Other objectives include a wider shareholder base, which a listing on a bourse of LSE’s repute promises, and the potential to consolidate its status as a leading pan-African corporation.

The company highlighted those aims when it first announced the decision in May.

Nigeria’s new frontier market status could boost trade

The step to hold the capital markets day on 21 September will receive timely support from FTSE Russell’s upgrade of Nigeria from “unclassified” to a frontier market, taking effect the same day next month.

Nigeria lost its place among frontier market economies in 2023 after an enduring FX crisis, dating back to the global oil price crash resulting from pandemic lockdowns in 2020, forced the Central Bank of Nigeria to ration dollars to conserve its direly low reserves.

The currency squeeze led several potential foreign investors to look elsewhere for a haven after the investments of existing foreign portfolio investors were trapped in the web of the crunch.

Foreign participation in Nigeria’s equity market, which dominated trade in the years before 2020, is yet to regain its pre-pandemic levels.

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According to Nigeria Exchange’s latest data, foreign participation in equity trading stood at 5.6 per cent in July, while domestic participation accounted for the rest.

That compares to September 2019, three months before COVID-19 broke out, when foreign trading in equities was as high as 66.8 per cent.

The improved visibility for foreign investors that an FTSE Russell upgrade offers to Nigerian stocks could attract large inflows into transactions in Dangote Cement’s shares, both locally and on the LSE.

If plans work out, the company will be quoted under the international commercial companies secondary listing framework, it said in May.

Dangote Cement promised to provide the agenda and presentation documents for the London event in September, along with other relevant information, at an appropriate time.