World's Largest Phosphate Miner OCP is Open to Foreign Investors

Bloomberg reported that OCP SA, the world’s largest phosphate miner, said it is open to foreign shareholders for the first time since the company was founded in 1920.
As quoted in the market news:

OCP SA, 95 percent owned by the Moroccan state, is studying bringing in investors such as sovereign wealth funds as a prelude to an initial public offering within two to three years, said two people familiar with the plans, who asked not to be identified as talks are private.
The company, which retains Rothschild as its financial adviser, has a monopoly on phosphate in Morocco, a country that holds three-quarters of the world’s reserves, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
OCP Chief Executive Officer Mostafa Terrab said in an interview that the state-owned company is ready to consider all possibilities and a share offering isn’t “taboo,” although the government has the final say.
The company, founded in 1920 is owned 95 percent by the government with the remainder held by local lender Banque Centrale Populaire, is in the middle of a $20 billion-plus expansion program to double mining output and triple fertilizer production. It has spent $4 billion on the 2008-2025 plan so far and is now deploying $2 billion more. The balance will be invested as demand increases, Terrab said.
OCP, which last year saw a 16 percent jump in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization to $1.36 billion, raised almost $3 billion from three dollar bonds in 2014 and 2015 and tapped the local bond market in 2011 for about $200 million.

Click here to read the full Bloomberg report.