Dangote Cement Plc’s operations outside Nigeria made a loss of N7.86 billion in the nine months to September 30, compared with a profit of N182.73 billion a year earlier, according to the company’s third-quarter financial statements.
Nigeria operations earned N849.40 billion and carried group profit after tax up 31.1% to N974.79 billion.
The loss did not come from weak trading.
Pan-African volumes rose 14% to 9.05 million tonnes, while revenue increased 12.6% to N1.19 trillion and EBITDA rose 12.7% to N226.7 billion, according to the earnings release.
Finance costs, currency effects and tax turned an operating profit of N146.46 billion into a loss, a drag of about N154.3 billion, on MoneyCentral calculations.
The figure the group uses to strip out transactions between its own companies, termed eliminations in the financials, swung from minus N200.87 billion to plus N188.2 billion. That swing points to loans between the Nigerian parent and its subsidiaries as a key driver.
Pan-Africa produced 30.8% of segment revenue in the nine months but only 12.4% of segment EBITDA, on MoneyCentral calculations. Its operating margin was 12.3%, against 55.3% in Nigeria.
Its EBITDA margin was 19.1%, against 59.8% in Nigeria, and its plants ran at about 61% of their 19.7 million-tonne capacity, on MoneyCentral calculations.
Most of these plants have been running since 2014-2015, according to the company’s history page.
Country by Country
Cameroon volumes fell 9.8% and South Africa fell 6.1% on weak demand and competition from imports, while Ghana dropped 10.1% amid “aggressive pricing by incumbent producers and new entrants”. Senegal, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Congo grew, according to Dangote Cement’s earnings release.
Before 2025, the story was mostly losses. MoneyCentral reported a Pan-Africa loss of N207.9 billion for the nine months to September 2024.
The audited 2025 accounts show a Pan-African profit after tax of N305.91 billion in 2025, which relied on N209.36 billion of finance income. In 2024 the segment lost N24.37 billion.
At September 30, the Pan-Africa segment’s liabilities of N3.95 trillion exceeded its total assets of N3.098 trillion by about N856 billion, or roughly $641 million, on MoneyCentral calculations.
Most of those liabilities are N2.85 trillion owed within the group, largely to the Nigerian parent. Currency translation also wiped N160.4 billion from other comprehensive income during the nine months.
Bottom-line
The Pan-Africa segment whose liabilities exceed its assets after more than a decade is still, in effect, being carried by the Nigerian parent.
Seen as a whole, the Pan-African unit has protected the group’s diversification story (it claims to have successfully repatriated approximately $270 million in hard currency from its Pan-African operations over the 2024–2025 financial period), and its scale.
Measured by return on the capital invested, however, it has so far been a costly way to buy that diversification.
Investors will be watching to see whether the fourth quarter brings a full-year loss, and whether weak units are restructured. They will also look at how London investors judge Pan-African returns at the planned $1 billion listing.
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