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Kellogg to spend $450 mil to expand in Africa

15 September 2015 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters, US

(Reuters) – Kellogg Co is setting up a joint venture with the African arm of Singapore’s Tolaram Group to bolster its breakfast and snack food offerings in West Africa.

Kellogg will also pay $450 million for a 50 percent stake in Lagos, Nigeria-based Multipro, a food sales and distribution company owned by Tolaram, with an option to buy a stake in Tolaram’s African unit.

Tolaram Africa Foods owns 49 percent of Dufil Prima Foods Plc, the maker of Indomie noodles, Minimie snacks, Power oil and Power pasta.

Kellogg said it intends to develop snacks and breakfast items for the West African market through the joint venture.

The world’s largest cereal maker will also get access to Multipro’s distribution network in Nigeria and Ghana, and potentially in the Dominican Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Ethiopia.

U.S. packaged food companies are increasingly looking to expand in emerging markets as customers in their biggest markets such as North America increasingly prefer cheaper private-label foods and cook more at home.

Kellogg acquired a majority stake in Egyptian biscuit maker Bisco Misr for $125 million in January.

Kellogg said it expects costs associated with the Tolaram deal to lower third-quarter earnings by 1 cent per share.

The company’s shares were down slightly in early trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Up to Monday’s close of $66.73, they had fallen 4.4 percent over the past 12 months.

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Bollore invests 30 mln euros in Ivory Coast-Burkina rail link

10 September 2015 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Europe, Latest Updates from Reuters

bollore rail

ABIDJAN (Reuters) – Bollore has invested 30 million euros ($33.6 million) to buy trains for the freight and passenger line it operates between Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, the French company said.

Landlocked Burkina Faso relies partly for its exports and imports on the ports of its southern neighbour Ivory Coast, the biggest economy in French-speaking West Africa. It also uses ports in other neighbours Ghana and Togo.

“We have invested around 30 million euros to acquire trains, including six received today,” Lionel Labarre, director of Bollore Africa Logistics, said on Wednesday.

“We are still waiting for nine locomotives that will add to the 20 that are already in service,” he said, adding that Bollore would also develop the station in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s main city.

Trains take about 36-hours to do the 1,260-km (787-mile) journey between Abidjan and Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou, and carriages are often packed with people, trade goods and animals being carried to market.

Bilateral trade between Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast hit 290 billion CFA francs ($495 million) in 2014, up from 165 billion in 2011, Prime Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan said at a ceremony to mark the arrival of the six new engines.

Most of the trade runs via rail and road links. Cargo traffic between the two countries stood at 610,000 tonnes last year, up from 402,000 tonnes in 2011, Duncan said.

Developing the rail line is a strategic priority for Ivory Coast and a tool for regional integration, said Duncan, adding that the country was aiming for 2 million passengers a year in the next few years up from 300,000 now.

Bollore has operated the Ivory Coast-Burkina Faso railway since 1995 and has recently been awarded a concession for a rail link between Niger, Benin and Togo.

 

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Smile Telecoms raises $365m to fund Africa expansion

8 September 2015 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters, Technology

Smile Telecoms

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – African mobile internet firm Smile Telecoms has raised $365 million to fund the expansion of high-speed broadband networks, it said on Tuesday, the latest firm to jockey for a position in the continent’s fast-growing mobile consumer market.

Telecoms and Internet companies are expanding in Africa to take advantage of the growing demand for data heavy services as more affordable smartphones encourage consumers to browse the internet, stream videos and download applications.

Mauritius-based Smile Telecoms said it would use the funds to extend its existing 4G LTE mobile broadband network in Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda and also launch the network in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2016.

The money was raised through a $50 million equity sale to Public Investment Corporation, a South African state-owned firm that manages more than 1.6 trillion rand on behalf of civil servants.

The rest of the funding was raised via debt from a group of investors that included Egypt’s African Export-Import Bank, Development Bank of Southern Africa, Diamond Bank plc and Standard Chartered Bank.

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