SEACEM sells stake in Lafarge Republic

MANILA, Philippines - Southeast Asia Cement Holdings Inc. (Seacem) sold yesterday 136 million of its shares in publicly-listed Lafarge Republic Inc. for P1.142 billion.

The shares accounted for 2.3 percent of the outstanding capital of Lafarge

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), Lafarge said its parent firm, Seacem, sold the shares to various domestic institutional investors at P8.40 apiece.

The shares were crossed through a block sale at the PSE.

The sale was intended to help Lafarge expand its public float.

Seacem earlier said the share sale would be followed by either a property dividend, share swap, or such other option that will be deemed most cost effective and feasible within the grace period allowed by the PSE for Lafarge to meet the 10-percent minimum public ownership requirement.

Lafarge is beefing up production capacity by an additional one million tons of cement per year starting the first quarter of 2013. The expansion is mainly driven by the strong demand for building materials owing to a huge backlog of construction projects.

Subsidiary Batong Angono Aggregates Corp. is also expanding its output by an additional two million tons per year of high quality aggregates, manufactured sand and base course in the National Capital Region.

Lafarge is primarily engaged in the manufacture, development and sale of cement, marble and all other kinds and classes of building materials. Its plants are located in Bulacan, Batangas and Rizal.