Alcan plans to keep as much as 80% of Coega smelter

Alcan, the world's third-largest aluminium producer, plans to keep a stake of between 45% and 80% in a $3bn aluminium smelter it plans to build at Coega. The state-owned Industrial Development Corporation will own 15% of the plant and black investors 5%, Brent Hegger, CEO of Montreal-based Alcan's South African unit, said in an interview in Port Elizabeth yesterday. Alcan said on November 24 that the company only planned to keep 25% to 40% of the project.