ARM Cement creditors approve sale of one of its subsidiaries to cut debt

Creditors of Kenya’s ARM Cement voted on Tuesday to approve the sale of one of its subsidiaries or other assets to reduce its debt, its administrator said.

Muniu Thoithi, one of the co-administrators from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), said 102 creditors, collectively owed 9.6 billion shillings ($95 million), had backed the proposal.

Two creditors, together owed 87,000 shillings, rejected the plan, he said.

The company was put into administration in August by some of its creditors and its shares suspended from the Nairobi bourse. It owes a total of about $190 million to a range of creditors including local commercial banks.

The creditors did not identify which subsidiary would be sold, or its possible value.

The company, once Kenya’s second-largest cement maker behind LafargeHolcim’s Bamburi Cement, has seen its market share plunge to just 10 percent after the clinker plant it built in Tanzania in 2014 failed to generate income. It also has a plant in Rwanda.

On Monday, George Weru, co-administrator of ARM Cement, said the company’s production machinery was in need of urgent spare parts while its management needed to be rebuilt, after several key staff left due to its cash flow problems.