Tolaram Group, the consumer goods company that has turned Indomie noodles into one of Nigeria’s national dishes, is planning to build West Africa’s biggest port on the east side of Lagos.
The Singapore-based Tolaram Group plans to finance the project with $1bn of Chinese money, as compiled from the Financial Times on Tuesday.
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The new port which could solve one of Nigeria’s export problems will be financed with $630m from the China Development Bank, and $470m in equity from the state-owned China Harbour Engineering Company, which has a 52.5 percent stake and will be responsible for building the port.
According to the information gathered by BusinessDay, Tolaram group owns 22.5 percent, the Nigerian Ports Authority has 5 percent and Lagos state 20 percent.
The infrastructure investment by Tolaram group is on the back of a $450m annual business that has turned Tolaram into the largest food company in Africa’s biggest market.
“This is a real game changer for us, doing project financing of this scale It’s easy to raise money for a factory -you need $30m, $50m. But you want to raise $800m? That’s a whole different ballgame,” Haresh Aswani, Tolaram’s managing director for Africa and grandson of its founder, said.
