Aliko Dangote seeks to raise $1.6bn from 10m retail investors in Africa's biggest IPO

Aliko Dangote is opening his $49bn refinery business to small investors. He wants 10mn shareholders across Africa. It would be the continent's biggest-ever IPO. Shares cost just $0.40 each, with a minimum buy of 10. The offer targets retail buyers, not institutions. There is a South African link too. Stanbic IBTC Capital, a Standard Bank subsidiary, is co-leading the listing. That gives South African finance a direct stake in Nigeria's biggest float. The IPO opens on 14 September and closes on 13 October..By David Pilling.Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, is seeking to raise at least $1.6bn from retail investors across the continent by listing shares in his refinery business, in what would be Africa’s largest-ever initial public offering.Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals is offering 4.1bn shares at 525 naira ($0.40) each, in a flotation that values the business at $49bn, with a minimum purchase of 10 shares aimed at opening the offer to small investors.“We’re targeting 10mn shareholders from all over Africa and maybe other parts of the world,” Dangote said on Monday as he unveiled the planned IPO on the Nigerian stock exchange. “If you can afford 10 shares, you buy 10. If you can afford one million, you buy one million.”Retail investors will receive two free shares provided they hold them for the required period, in what company executives hope will foster an investment culture in Nigeria on the lines of the British Gas privatisation under Margaret Thatcher in 1986.The Dangote refinery began operations in 2024 but reached capacity just before the US and Israel attack on Iran that roiled oil markets and turbocharged profits at refineries.Dangote defied sceptics by constructing the refinery over a decade on swampland outside Lagos, transforming Nigeria from a huge importer of refined products to an exporter.David Bird, a former Shell executive who now heads Dangote’s refinery and petrochemicals division, defended the valuation of the 700,000-barrel-a-day refinery, the world’s biggest of its type, that cost some $20bn to build.He said investors were participating in a “growth journey”, with refining capacity expected to double by the end of the decade. Dangote is also looking to bolster production of other products, including a precursor for detergents.Bird said the $49bn valuation was based on the oversubscribed private placement of $2.5bn that concluded in July and rejected the idea that it was inflated by the “incredible margins” the refinery was making on diesel and jet fuel as a result of supply constraints caused by the Iran war.“We’ll let them [the private placement investors] do the talking because they’re the ones with the cheque books,” he added.Dangote said the valuation reflected margins that could be maintained over a cycle. “We don’t base our business . . . on crisis. No. We base the business on a normal trend . . . Whatever we have over and above that is icing on the cake.”A prospectus is due to be released when the IPO opens on September 14, according to company executives.Funds from the IPO will also be used to build “tank farms” from which to deliver refined products around the continent, the first of which is planned for Namibia.Dangote also wants to build another 700,000 b/d refinery in Kenya to serve east Africa, but that operation, which would come under the holding company, would be separate from the Lagos refinery business, Bird said.Dangote had originally planned the listing as a pan-African offering, but cumbersome regulations have prevented simultaneous listings on other African exchanges.Bird denied that the pan-African aspect of the listing had been “hyped”, saying investors in other African countries would be able to participate through institutional investors.“The beauty of this is that the minimum entry is 10 units at 525 naira,” said Kasimu Garba Kurfi, chief executive of APT Securities and Funds, a brokerage in Lagos. “Anybody can afford it no matter how poor you are.”Bismarck Rewane, managing director of the Lagos-based advisory firm Financial Derivatives Company, said: “This is the democratisation of the economy. The democratisation of politics is still a work in progress.”.Read more: .The Economist: Africa’s richest man has ambitious plans for the continent.The IPO will close on October 13, with shares expected to be listed on the Nigerian stock exchange in November. The exchange is among the world’s best-performing this year, up 72 per cent in dollar terms.The offering is being led by Nigeria’s Vetiva Advisory Services, with FirstCap, a Nigerian investment bank, and Stanbic IBTC Capital, a Nigerian subsidiary of South Africa’s Standard Bank..© 2026 The Financial Times Ltd..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. 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Aliko Dangote seeks to raise $1.6bn from 10m retail investors in Africa's biggest IPO

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