The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Tuesday approved the listing of “an enlarged company” arising from the merger of Dangote Cement Plc and Benue Cement Co.

The exchange approved a total of 15.5-million shares for the new company, to be known as Dangote Cement Plc, for listing at 135 naira each, according to a statement released by the NSE.

Nigeria-based newspaper ThisDay reports shareholders of Dangote Cement and Benue will meet at the end of September to pass resolutions on the proposed merger.

Dangote Cement has operations in Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, Senegal, South Africa and Zambia. Dangote Group, the parent company, also owns the Benue Cement Company Plc with 3.0 million metric tonnes of production capacity per annum.

Aggressive growth plans target a strong pan-African presence as Dangote Cement evolves to become a multi-national corporation. Greenfield Projects in Zambia and Senegal will have a capacity of 1.5 metric tonnes each, per annum.

Dangote Group has two other companies, Dangote Flour and Dangote Sugar, listed on the Stock Exchange.

With the merger of Benue Cement with Dangote Cement and its listing on the market, the Group could potentially be responsible for up to 30% of total market capitalisation at any one time and the managers of the Nigerian economy would have to look out for market sensitivity to Dangote-related issues.