Two weeks after its representatives met Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Lafarge Cement announced last week that it had secured a buyer for its 76.45% stake in Zimbabwe’s second-largest cement manufacturer.
From the list, the Chinese company Huaxin Cement was widely reported as the front-runner to buy the listed Zimbabwe cement maker after it bought Lafarge Zambia and Lafarge Malawi last year. Fossil Mines, which has no track record in manufacturing, has been a beneficiary of multimillion-dollar public works contracts including road infrastructure projects such as theFossil bought a 4.4% stake in Great Dyke Investments , a $3-billion platinum mine project that was until this week jointly owned by Russia’s Vi Holding and Kuvimba Mining House, a company heavily linked to Tagwirei.
“The decision to exit the project is in connection with global sanctions of Western countries against Russia, which naturally applies to Russian investments abroad,” the company said. Some Zimbabwean government and mining industry officials said Tagwirei and the government created Kuvimba to shield the businessman’s mining companies from the US and British financial sanctions that would have crimped their operations.