Lafarge

Lafarge Africa's ownership finally changed hands in 2025, closing in late August after Holcim AG agreed in December 2024 to sell its entire 83.81% stake to Huaxin Building Materials Group of China for an equity value of roughly $1 billion, later adjusted down to roughly $773.86 million to account for dividends paid between January 2024 and closing. A minority shareholder, Strategic Consultancy Ltd, challenged the sale in Nigerian federal court over consultation concerns, a dispute that remained unresolved at completion; Holcim itself also retains a 41.8% stake in Huaxin Cement, meaning its influence has moved a layer back rather than disappeared. The deal gives Huaxin, a Hubei-based cement producer founded in 1907 that only entered Africa in 2020, control of four Nigerian plants, Sagamu, Ewekoro, Ashaka, and Mfamosing, with combined annual capacity of about 10 million tonnes, instantly making it Nigeria's third-largest cement producer, positioned against Dangote Cement's roughly 35 million tonnes and BUA Cement's expanding footprint.

Financially, FY2025 was a genuine breakout year regardless of the ownership transition: revenue rose to ₦1.07 trillion from ₦696.8 billion, operating profit more than doubled to ₦392.1 billion, and profit for the year nearly tripled to ₦273.1 billion, with basic earnings per share climbing to ₦16.96 from ₦6.22 and the Board proposing a dividend of ₦6.00 per share, a fivefold increase on the prior year. By the nine-month mark in October 2025, ahead of the deal's completion, after-tax profit had already surged to ₦207.8 billion from ₦60.1 billion a year earlier, with the company's Nigerian Exchange market value standing at roughly ₦2.23 trillion.

Lafarge Africa's product portfolio, anchored by Elephant Cement and extending into low-carbon offerings through ECOPlanet cement and ECOCrete concrete, remains unchanged through the ownership transition, and the company's new majority shareholder has signalled interest in enhanced global synergies and technological exchange as part of its broader African expansion strategy.