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Dangote Cement Plc, Africa's largest cement producer, has listed its N100 billion series 1 senior unsecured bonds on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) today. The debt securities were earlier issued by the cement manufacturer on April 24, 2020 and were 100 per cent subscribed.

The secondary trading of the bond on the NSE is to provide an opportunity for bondholders who would like to sell their stakes for liquidity purpose. The bonds have a coupon rate of 12.50 per cent and tenor of 5 years, according to a market bulletin released by the NSE on Monday.

The bond issuance is part of Dangote Cement’s debt-capital raising programme worth N300 billion. It is also the company's first bond issuance in the Nigerian debt market.

Dangote Cement said proceeds from the debt securities would be used as working capital and to refinance existing short-term debt that was previously raised for some expansion projects. The corporate bonds are reportedly the largest to be ever issued by a public company in the Nigerian debt market.

Following the bond issue in April, Michel Puchercos, CEO of Dangote Cement, had noted that “It allows us to further broaden our sources of funding by accessing long-term debt at competitive costs from the capital market and builds further on the success of our domestic commercial paper programme. The success of this transaction, in the current challenging environment, illustrates investors’ continuous confidence in Dangote Cement’s strategy, strong cash generation and solid credit profile.”

Dangote Cement is the second largest-listed company in Nigeria with a market capitalisation of N2.37 trillion as of June 15, behind MTN Nigeria Communications Plc’s N2.40 trillion market capitalisation. As at 12:00 GMT on Monday, Dangote Cement’s stock was trading flat at N139 per share.