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PPC Ltd has already secured $422 million for expansion projects in Zimbabwe, Rwanda, DRC and Ethiopia.

PPC Ltd, South Africa’s biggest cement company, said it expects shareholders to retain the board at a vote next month even as profit declined on falling sales in its domestic market.
This was after investors representing about 10 percent of stock called for a vote on the board after chief executive Mr Ketso Gordhan resigned in September following a dispute with his fellow directors.

Mr Todd Moyo, PPC Zimbabwe chairman, sits on the PPC Limited board. He is a 5 percent shareholder in PPC Zimbabwe, a shareholding he co-owns with Mr Stanford Moyo.
In a notice to shareholders yesterday, the investors who include Foord Asset Management, Visio Capital Management and Nedbank Private Wealth, said the current board was no longer “functional”.

“The current board needs to be replaced with a functional board with the correct expertise to run the company and this needs to be done as soon as possible in order to restore continuity to the operations and strategy of the company and it is in the best interests of all stakeholders including shareholders and employees,” said PPC Ltd in a notice to shareholders.

But in an interview with Bloomberg yesterday, chairman Mr Bheki Sibiya said: “We are confident that the shareholders are not going to be removing the board in its entirety.” They will support “the growth that we have delivered into the African continent”.

PPC is expanding in African countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Algeria, where demand for cement outstrips supply, and plans to have 40 percent of sales outside its home market by 2017.

The company said yesterday it has already secured $422 million for expansion projects in Zimbabwe, Rwanda, DRC and Ethiopia.
Meanwhile, the group said its Zimbabwe units recorded a fifth consecutive year of rising cement demand despite slower domestic volume growth due to liquidity constraints.
Rising demand is underpinned by good export volume growth as well as selling prices.

The group has secured $75 million from the PTA Bank for the construction of a cement factory in Harare.
“Construction of a 700 000 tonnes per annum cement mill in Harare for ($85 million) is proceeding well (and the) corporate loan funded against PPC Zimbabwe’s balance sheet has been secured from PTA bank,” said the group.

It said the company contracted Sinoma and the construction of basic infrastructure has started. The plant will be commissioned in 2016. PPC Ltd added that plans to construct a clinker plant on Zimbabwe’s eastern border and mill in Tete were ongoing.

The group’s net income fell to $76,4 million in the year through September, PPC said yesterday. The company cut the full-year dividend by 27 percent to 1,14 rand per share. — Business Reporter/Bloomberg.