Dangote targets 10m shareholders as Refinery IPO opens

By Olakunle Oke, Marvellous Uzoma and Kamsy Gbenoba

The Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals has commenced its Initial Public Offering (IPO), with President of Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote, targeting 10 million shareholders across Africa in what he described as an “IPO for the people.”
The refinery is offering its shares at N525 each, with a minimum subscription of 10 shares, as it seeks to raise more than N2 trillion to fund its expansion programme.
However, Dangote said raising capital was not the primary motivation for taking the refinery to the public market, stressing that the business was already generating strong free cash flow and had previously accessed significant funding through bonds and private placements.
He said the IPO was primarily designed to broaden ownership of the multibillion-naira refinery and give ordinary Nigerians and other Africans an opportunity to participate in its future growth.
“We want to get as many Africans as possible. We are targeting 10 million shareholders from all over Africa and maybe other parts of the world,” Dangote said.
He urged investors to participate according to their financial capacity, saying those who could afford the minimum 10 shares should invest at that level, while investors with greater capacity could subscribe for substantially more.
Dangote said the offering was intended to cut across income and professional groups, including employees such as drivers, cooks, managers and other workers.
“We want this to be an IPO for the people,” he said, adding that wider ownership would help spread the benefits of the refinery across society.
He said the investment could provide ordinary salary earners with an avenue to build long-term wealth and secure the future of their families, particularly through investments that could support education and other needs.
Dangote also expressed the hope that the IPO would create more millionaires across Africa, drawing comparisons with early investors in companies such as Amazon who benefited from the long-term growth of their investments.
Beyond the refinery, he said the Dangote Group’s fertiliser business and other industrial operations could provide additional opportunities for Africans to participate in the continent’s industrial transformation.
Dangote said the valuation and pricing of the IPO were based on normal business conditions and were not built around exceptional profits arising from geopolitical crises, including the Middle East conflict or the Russia-Ukraine war.
He said the refinery’s financial projections were based on its expected performance under normal market conditions rather than temporary supply disruptions or unusually high international energy prices.
“We don’t base our business on crisis. We base our businesses on a normal trend. Whatever we have over and above that is icing on the cake,” he said.
Dangote warned investors and businesses against building long-term strategies around temporary geopolitical disruptions, noting that conflicts would eventually end and markets would return to normal conditions.
He described the refinery as a long-term, multigenerational investment that should continue operating for decades.
The Dangote Refinery currently has a stated refining capacity of 700,000 barrels per day, positioning it among the world’s largest single-train refining facilities and as a major supplier of refined petroleum products to Nigeria and international markets.
The company has also emerged as a significant supplier of aviation fuel to international markets, including Europe.
Under its expansion programme, the refinery plans to double its capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day, while expanding its petrochemical and petroleum products distribution operations across Africa.
The expansion is targeted for completion by 2028 and is expected to further strengthen the refinery’s position as an integrated refining and petrochemical complex.
The company also plans to expand its distribution infrastructure across West Africa, including proposed tank farms and pipeline operations in Namibia to improve the movement of petroleum products to underserved inland markets.
Dangote said the long-term objective was to transform the refinery into a pan-African energy platform capable of supporting energy security, industrialisation and economic growth across the continent.
He argued that the project had demonstrated that African businesses could execute large-scale industrial projects capable of competing in global markets.
Dangote commended the refinery’s bankers, advisers, regulators, the Nigerian Exchange Group and other stakeholders for their roles in bringing the IPO to the market.
He described the offering as the biggest IPO in Africa’s history and urged Nigerians and other African investors to take advantage of the opportunity to become shareholders in the refinery.
The IPO marks a significant new phase for the Dangote Refinery, combining an ambitious expansion programme with an effort to distribute ownership of one of Africa’s largest industrial projects among millions of investors.

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