New Japanese shareholder and technical partner invests Rs. 1.5 b more in Tokyo Cement

• Ups stake to 10% with acquisition of 4% each yesterday and Friday

Foreign institutional shareholder and technical partner Ube Singapore Holdings Ltd. has invested a further Rs. 1.5 billion to increase its stake in Tokyo Cement Company (Lanka) Plc. to over 10%.

Yesterday it bought 4% stake or 10.69 million shares at Rs. 72 each after having picked up an equal number of shares at Rs. 69.60 though. As of 31 March 2017, Ube had only 2% stake. Ube is a cement manufacturer in Japan and investment is via its Singapore arm. 

The seller was Nippon Coke and Engineering Ltd., which as at 31 March 2017 held 15.32% stake. It has been selling down in recent years. In FY16 it held 20.8% stake in Tokyo Cement, control of which is held by St. Anthony’s Consolidated Ltd. and related parties.

Ube is working closely with Tokyo Cement after having entered into a partnership in August last year to extend technical support services and import part of the raw material requirements from Japan to manufacture high-quality cement.

For the year ended 31 March 2017, the Tokyo Cement Group had posted a pre-tax profit of Rs. 4 billion, up by 64% from the previous year. Bottom line was up 72% to Rs. 3.3 billion. Group turnover grew by 19% to Rs. 35.7 billion.