Former owners of Dangote Flour Mills Ltd and South African consumer goods maker, Tiger Brands has announced that is nearly done with a review of its African business and will now focus on serving its South African Market.
According to Reuters, the company said it will focus more on branded food sales to middle-income consumers in its home market, South Africa.
“The immediate priority is to rejuvenate the domestic business to deliver sustainable, profitable growth,”
Tiger Brand acquired controlling shares in Dangote Flour Mills in 2012 for about $182 million before acquiring more shares to give it total control and taking its purchase consideration to about $200m.
Tiger Brand acquired Dangote Flourmills in the hope that it will use its track record as South Africa’s largest consumer food maker to turn the loss making company around. Instead, it has racked up losses for years and has mothballed some of its mills. Tiger Brand also invested in Deli Foods, UAC as part of its investment spree in Africa’s largest economy.
Tiger Brand agreed to sell its 65.7% stake in its loss making Nigerian division to Dangote Industries Limited for $1.
Tiger Brands has also pulled back from East Africa as part of its review.
“We have refined our approach to our African strategy by exiting non-core categories in Kenya and Ethiopia,” the company said.
The company is not planning to scale back much further after these disposals and Africa remains part of its growth strategy, MacDougall said in a call to reporters.
“The clean-up of our portfolio and geographies is in good shape,” he said.
Parts of this article was culled from Reuters.
Note: An earlier version of this article suggested that Tiger Brands has lost all its money in Nigeria and also sold all its operations to Dangote Industries Ltd. A representative of Tiger Brands sent us an email confirming that they had not lost all their money in Nigeria and that not all their business has been sold to Dangote.
