ALUCAM appeals to investors for the takeover of Rio Tinto Alcan assets

The Director general of the Cameroon aluminium company (Alucam), Alain Malong, launched July 1, 2015, an international call for interest (AMI) "relating to the takeover of shares formerly held by Rio Tinto Alcan (RTA) in the capital of the Group Alucam (comprised of Alucam, Socatral and Alubassa corporations) in Cameroon".

Interested bidders, "with demonstrated experience in legal, technical, economic and financial fields, and with a perfect mastery of the aluminium and markets related sector both in Africa and abroad" have until July 14, 2015 to send their files to the Directorate-General of Alucam in Douala, the economic capital of Cameroon.

This AMI comes a week after the publication of June 26, 2015, of two legal notices devoting the transfer to the State of Cameroon, the assets of the French firm Pechiney (acquired in 2003 by the Canadian Alcan, which was redeemed by the Australian Rio Tinto in 2007), in the capital of Alucam (1 623 127 shares amounting to a nominal value of 12 550 Cfa francs each) and its subsidiary Socatral (1362 shares of a nominal value of 89 000 francs CFA each), specialized in the manufacture of corrugated iron sheets.

ALUCAM sacrificed at the altar of strategic priorities

As a reminder, it was in October 2014 that the Rio Tinto Alcan group announced it will leave in December 31, 2014, the capital of Alucam which they held 46.7%.

"The sustainability of the Alucam group is based on a business plan that no longer meets the strategic priorities of Rio Tinto Alcan," explained the president and CEO of the primary Metal at Rio Tinto Alcan group, Arnaud Soirat, to justify the decision of the world aluminium giant to sell its assets in Cameroon.

Asked about the motivation of this decision, Claudine Gagnon, Senior Advisor and Rio Tinto Alcan media relations manager was more accurate: "the Alucam Group's future is increasingly conditioned to the development of a new business model focused on the local manufacture of products with high added value, rather than on the export of primary metal. This new vision is no more part of the objectives of Rio Tinto Alcan, which focuses on the production of primary metal and which disengaged from all activities of transformation in recent years," she said, noting the participation of Rio Tinto in the construction of the Natchigal project with a capacity of 400MW.

"Rio Tinto Alcan's account remains within the project and will continue to contribute to its development."