Bamburi Cement has formally confirmed receipt of a Ksh. 25.4 billion counter-offer from Savannah Clinker Ltd, a local building and construction solutions provider. Savannah Clinker is seeking to acquire up to 100% of Bamburi’s issued shares, subject to regulatory approvals.
The official publication follows the official receipt by the Kenyan bidder of formal approval from the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) to make the bid. In an issued public notice, the Bamburi Cement Board of Directors confirmed that they had received a Competing Offeror’s Statement from Savannah Clinker (SCL) for a Ksh. 70 cash consideration for each ordinary share of Bamburi.
The Kenyan firm, wholly owned by Benson Sande Ndeta has set out to improve the position for Bamburi Cement shareholders with an offer representing Ksh. 1.8 billion bonus. This is above the Ksh. 23 billion offer recently placed by a Tanzanian conglomerate, Amsons Group, which is also seeking to acquire the entire Bamburi equity stake.
The Savannah bid is also an improvement on that from the Tanzanians, as the Kenyan firm is offering to snap up the 362,959,275 Bamburi-issued shares for a Ksh. 70 cash consideration payable by end of February 2025. This is a significant improvement on the end of November 2025 long-stop time-frame offered by the Tanzanian bidder. This time difference represents a close to 15% uplift of the offer price.
The competing offeror’s statement provides that, “the Transaction Advisor, Faida Investment Bank Ltd, has received a letter from a leading, professionally regulated international firm confirming that (a) they act for the investor, (b) the investor is in receipt of sufficient funding for this specific transaction; and (c) that the funding is “free and unencumbered” for such purposes…”
As a locally incorporated firm, SCL’s bid will also offer attractive tax benefits to the government as dividends will not be expatriated or converted to foreign currency. By placing the improved counter-offer bid on the table, Savannah Clinker will seek to exit Holcim while offering a premium to acquire minority equity stakes.
Savannah Clinker, he assured, also intends to ensure sustained Bamburi Cement business continuity at the close of the competing offer period by maintaining the existing contractual and statutory employment rights. This includes pensions of all Bamburi employees, which will remain in force in accordance with the applicable laws.