The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has provided an $81.9 million senior loan to support the expansion of Veenocks Limited’s porcelain tile manufacturing plant in Sagamu, Ogun State, Nigeria, as the lender backs efforts to increase domestic production and expand regional trade.
The expansion, part of a project estimated to cost $145 million, is expected to triple the plant’s annual production capacity to 9.9 million square metres from 3.3 million square metres, according to Afreximbank.
The project is also expected to create 300 additional direct jobs, bringing new employment opportunities to a facility that currently employs more than 200 people. Further jobs are expected across raw material supply, logistics and distribution.
Afreximbank supported the project’s preparation through a $2 million Project Preparation Facility agreement signed with Veenocks in August 2024. The funding covered technical, commercial, financial, legal, environmental and social studies required to establish the project’s bankability.
The studies, combined with the bank’s regional experience, helped the company broaden its plans beyond Nigeria to pursue markets including Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Niger, Cameroon, Ghana, Mauritania and Senegal.
“Veenocks demonstrates how project preparation, commercial expertise and senior debt financing can support African industrial investment. The studies financed through Afreximbank’s Project Preparation Facility have helped strengthen the project’s bankability and broaden the company’s regional growth ambitions.
“Our senior debt financing supports the plant expansion needed to convert those ambitions into increased productive capacity, and stronger foundations for intra-African trade,” said Mrs. Kanayo Awani, Executive Vice President, Intra-African Trade and Export Development at Afreximbank.
Awani said the $2 million preparation financing had been fully repaid from senior debt, replenishing the facility’s capital for other projects.
“Full repayment of the preparation financing ensures capital is available to support more indigenous African investors and projects. This is the PPF’s revolving model in practice: the funds that have been repaid are used to support initiatives that add value to local resources and expand manufacturing.”
Veenocks is a subsidiary of R28 Holdings. Its Group President, Adebisi Abidemi Adebutu, said the investment would help the company increase local production and reduce Nigeria’s dependence on imported tiles.
“This investment represents an important step towards our ambition of building a globally competitive manufacturing business in Nigeria, producing world-class tiles to European quality standards and reducing Nigeria’s dependence on imported tiles. The PPF was instrumental in broadening our growth plans and positioning us to penetrate regional markets over the medium term.
“With Afreximbank’s financing, we can now deliver the expansion phase of this project. The facility will allow us to add value to Nigeria’s raw materials, create quality jobs and increase the supply of our porcelain tiles, manufactured here in Nigeria, to customers at home and across the region. Our vision is to set the global benchmark for quality in tile manufacturing and to become Africa’s first choice for porcelain tiles,” Adebutu said.
The expansion adds to Afreximbank’s efforts to finance African manufacturing and support cross-border trade by helping companies build production capacity and access regional markets.
