Qalaa Holdings, one of Egypt’s largest investment companies, announced that its business unit ASEC Cement signed agreements to sell its subsidiaries ASEC Minya Cement and ASEC Ready Mix to Misr Cement Qena for a total consideration of EGP1 billion. ASEC Cement owns 46.5% and 55% in ASEC Minya Cement and ASEC Ready Mix, respectively. ASEC Minya Cement is an Egyptian cement producer located in Upper-Egypt which started commercial operations in August 2013 with a production capacity of 2 million tons per year. Meanwhile, ASEC Ready Mix is a producer and distributor of ready mix concrete, operating 6 plants in Upper-Egypt with production reaching 382K cubic meters in FY2014. This deal will accelerate Qalaa’s strategy for FY2015, with its key elements being deleveraging at holding company levels, acquisition of additional stakes in key platform companies, selective investments within existing platform companies, and share buybacks so long as these trade at a significant discount to their fair market value.