Aliko Dangote says the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals IPO is targeting 10 million shareholders across Africa, stressing that the offer is primarily aimed at broadening ownership rather than raising funds.
Dangote made the disclosure on Monday after the signing ceremony for the refinery’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) at the Eko Convention Centre in Lagos, where he said investors could subscribe for as few as 10 shares.
“It’s not really about raising money. It’s about getting our own Africans generally to be part and parcel of this,” Dangote said.
According to him, the company already has strong cash generation and has previously raised funds through bonds and private placements, making broad participation the central objective of the IPO.
“We have a very good free cash flow. We have raised quite a lot of money. We’ve done bonds. We’ve done private placement,” he said.
Dangote said the company could have offered a larger stake if fundraising had been its primary objective, but chose to limit the offer to encourage wider participation.
“If we want to raise money, we know how to raise. That’s why we have a limit. If not, we’d actually offered 20% of the company,” he said.
He said the company is targeting 10 million shareholders from across Africa and potentially other parts of the world.
“We are targeting 10 million shareholders from all over Africa and maybe other parts of the world,” Dangote said.
He explained that the strategy was also intended to create opportunities for salary earners and other Nigerians to build long-term investments through ownership of shares.
“I want it to be like the likes of this Amazon and Coke, where somebody will buy a share worth $10,000. After a couple of years, it’s going to be worth millions,” he said.
Dangote said the broader objective extends beyond the refinery, noting that the group is also building other major businesses, including its fertiliser operations.
“We are creating big corporations where we don’t want to be the only people enjoying. We want to spread this enjoyment to the rest of Africa,” he said.
On the refinery’s profitability, Dangote said its projections were not based on temporary gains from geopolitical crises, including the Russia-Ukraine war and the Middle East crisis.
“Our own basis of calculation is based on the normal days,” he said.
He added that the company considered what the refinery could earn under normal market conditions rather than relying on unusually high refining margins caused by global crises.
“You cannot base your business based on that. We don’t base our business based on crisis. No, we base the businesses based on the normal trend,” Dangote said.
Asked about reports of interest from strategic investors, Dangote declined to identify specific parties, citing non-disclosure agreements, but confirmed that other investors and governments had expressed interest.
“There is what you call an NDA, non-disclosure agreement. So, we have agreements with other people,” he said.
He disclosed that a previous private placement attracted significantly more demand than the company initially sought.
“We wanted to sell only $1 billion worth of shares to our private investors, and we got 3.7 times the demand,” Dangote said.
He said $3.7 billion was paid into the company’s accounts against the $1 billion initially sought, after which the company accepted $2.5 billion and returned $1.2 billion.
Dangote said the refinery should be viewed as a long-term investment, arguing that its operations are intended to continue for decades.
“This is a lifetime investment. This refinery is not about 10 years, 20, 30, or 50 years, he said.
The Dangote Refinery IPO follows regulatory approval for the public offer and the signing of the transaction documents by the company and its advisers.
Ademide Adebayo
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