Posted by By Oluyinka Akintunde, Abuja on
An indigenous firm and a distributor of Peugeot in the country, ASD Motors Limited, on Tuesday acquired 54.87 per cent shares in the Peugeot Automobile of Nigeria Limited, Kaduna, for the sum of $31.975m (about N4.093bn).
An indigenous firm and a distributor of Peugeot in the country, ASD Motors Limited, on Tuesday acquired 54.87 per cent shares in the Peugeot Automobile of Nigeria Limited, Kaduna, for the sum of $31.975m (about N4.093bn).
THE PUNCH had exclusively reported on Monday that only two prospective bidders, ASD Motors Limited and Technopipe Services Limited, made it to the final stages of the transaction process on PAN, out of a total of five.
The Bureau of Public Enterprises on behalf of the Federal Government and PAN's Technical Partners, AP France, had jointly agreed to divest 54.87 per cent of the company to a core investor.
Under the arrangement, the Federal Government divested 24.87 per cent of its 34.87 per cent shares in PAN, while AP France divested 30 per cent of its 40 per cent shares in the company.
At the financial bid opening for PAN in Abuja, ASD Motors emerged winner and preferred bidder for the majority shareholding in the automobile company in the second round of the bidding exercise.
The company staked $31.975m for the 54.87 per cent shares in PAN, which is $11.592m more than the $20.383m offered by Technopipe Services Limited.
Earlier in the first round of the bid exercise, ASD Motors was willing to pay $12.963m for the Federal Government/AP France shares, as against the N500.373m put forward by the TSL.
The Vice-Chairman of the Technical Committee of the National Council on Privatisation, Alhaji Mohammed Ibrahim, declared ASD Motors as the preferred bidder for the automobile company subject to the approval of the NCP.
He gave the terms of payment for the bid price as follows: 10 per cent of the purchase consideration within 10 working days from the date of official notification, and the remainder 90 per cent payment within 90 calendar days from the date of official notification.
Ibrahim stated that the preferred bidder was expected to pay in US dollars into BPE/AP France escrow account with Citi bank, Abuja.
Details of the owners of ASD Motors showed that Alhaji Sani Dauda has 76 per cent shares in the company, while Alhaji Shehu Sani and Alhaji Jamilu Sani owned 12 per cent each.
The Managing Director of ASD Motors, Alhaji Aliyu Kakumi, who spoke to journalists at the end of the bid exercise, said the company would inject a minimum of N3bn into PAN as part of measures to expand its operations.
'We promise to work towards producing less expensive and affordable cars to enable more Nigerians purchase new cars rather than used imported cars as has been the case in the last two decades," Kakumi said.