ARM Cement's shares plunge on bond payment report

ARM Cement Ltd Managing Director Pradeep Paunrana during an interview with the Standard team at his Nairobi office. Photo by WILLIS AWANDU/STANDARD

Shares of ARM Cement dropped by the maximum daily limit of 10 percent on Tuesday after a newspaper reported that it had missed a bond interest payment.

A local business newspaper reported that ARM last month failed to pay bondholders interest on a bond it issued in 2015.

ARM CEO Pradeep Paunrana told Reuters that he was travelling and would comment on the report at 3:30 p.m.

Its shares were trading at Sh3.25, down 9.72 percent from Monday’s close of Sh3.60, Reuters data showed.

The shares are down nearly 97 percent from their all-time peak of Sh98.00 each at the start of 2014, as the problems in Tanzania fuelled a collapse of its Kenyan market share from above 20 percent to the current 10 percent.

The shares were the most heavily traded on the Nairobi bourse in Monday’s session, when they closed down 7 percent after media reports that the company’s auditor had flagged internal debt worth Sh21 billion.