Lagos (AFP) – After going from hawking sweets to his primary schoolmates to becoming Africa’s richest man, Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote now stands on the cusp of what could be the continent’s biggest-ever IPO. Dangote, whose business empire spans Africa, had initially planned to raise $1.6 billion to help turn his flagship mega-oil refinery into the world’s largest from the initial public offering, which closes on Tuesday. The tycoon extended the application deadline for what he has called “the people’s IPO” by weeks to extend participation to more Africans, although it had already garnered enough interest to raise “more than three, four times” the target amount.
His initial plan was for 10 million investors to get involved in an offering designed to allow low-income earners in Africa to take part. Shares sold for $0.40 each, with the 10-share minimum investment costing $4. Part of the proceeds will go towards doubling the capacity of his Lagos-based 700,000-barrel per day refinery — already bigger than any in Europe. A great-grandson of colonial era Nigeria’s wealthiest businessman, Alhassan Dantata, Dangote exhibited signs of business acumen early in his childhood — buying sweets before peddling them to his schoolmates when he was just eight years old.
Now at 69, his riches outstrip everyone on the continent, with a worth of $35.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg billionaires index, while Forbes estimates his fortune at $51.3 billion. His vision for Africa and better grasp of the local markets over decades has helped him gain a competitive edge over foreign multinationals in fields like manufacturing and fossil fuels. “By 2030, the majority of African countries will be self-sufficient,” he told AFP in Kenya last month when asked about when Africa would no longer need to import fuel.
As he launched his 700,000 bpd refinery in Kenya worth $16 billion, Dangote declared: “This is Africa coming together to build Africa”. “We’re breaking ground for a new chapter in Africa’s industrial journey to a brighter future,” Dangote said. After graduating from Egypt’s Al-Azhar University, Dangote started trading in cement, rice, and sugar. He was later to start producing those commodities, building mega factories and expanding operations into at least 14 African countries.
By 2030, he aims to make the Dangote Group Africa’s first $100-billion company. Time Magazine listed Dangote as one of the world’s 100 most influential people in 2026. “He is indefatigable, resilient and foresighted. He is one of the greatest African entrepreneurs of our time,” Nigerian business leader and philanthropist Tony Elumelu was quoted as saying in Time Magazine.
Giving ordinary Nigerians and Africans a chance to own a stake in what would be the continent’s biggest industrial project, Dangote said the IPO was not just about raising funds: “It’s about getting our own Africans generally to be part and parcel of this refinery.” Nigerian economist Bismarck Rewane called what Dangote has done a “democratisation of the economy,” in a continent marked by stark inequality between the rich and poor.
Besides often keeping a low profile and maintaining an unremarkable wardrobe, Dangote sometimes drives himself, without the long security convoys associated with many Nigerian elites. Locals have spotted him walking from his office to a mosque for Friday prayers in Lagos. Despite buying his first private jet at 22, Dangote says he is comfortable travelling commercial flights. He remarked that it took him 30 minutes to find parking for his plane in the capital Abuja recently, saying he wished the “place was full of factories, not private jets”.
Dangote has lived in the same house for nearly four decades, with no plans to move, and has sold off his holiday homes abroad. Among his hobbies, he lists business, regularly clocking in 18-hour days.
The tycoon, who said he has committed a third of his wealth to his Dangote Foundation, has also taken to giving back to society. His foundation has spent millions of dollars on education, healthcare, and disaster relief, helping victims of the last Ebola outbreak in West Africa and building a Covid isolation centre during the pandemic. In 2012, he teamed up with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help eradicate polio in Nigeria. He wants his legacy to be the one who “pioneered…the industrialisation of Africa,” he told Nicolai Tangen, the head of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, in a podcast earlier this year.
Like many Nigerians, Dangote is an avowed football fan and had considered buying a stake in Arsenal, which would have made him the first African owner of an English Premier League club. But given the competing demands on his time, he decided that “it’s better…to remain as a fan and continue to fund my own business.”
© 2024 AFP
