Suara Sherif
Aliko Dangote has said he is willing to reduce his ownership of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery to as low as 25 percent, as more Africans rush to buy shares in the company and demand for the offering continues to surge.
The President of Dangote Industries Limited made the disclosure during a fireside chat at the Nairobi Securities Exchange in Kenya, where he spoke on the company’s planned investments in Africa, the Lamu refinery and its proposed public ownership structure across the continent.
Dangote said his business group was prepared to sell more shares where there was sufficient demand, stressing that the goal was to democratise wealth-making and allow ordinary Africans to own a stake in the refinery.
“This $1.6bn that we have, I can tell you for nothing that we will sell more.”
”We will go to the regulator and ask the regulator that, ‘Look, there is more demand; we want more Africans to own it’.
”As we go along, we don’t mind, even if Dangote will end up having twenty or twenty-five per cent, we have nothing to hide,” he said.
The disclosure means the group could ultimately sell up to 75 percent of its stake in the refinery, depending on further share sales and demand from investors.
The demand story has been extraordinary.
Dangote revealed that the company initially planned to raise $2.5 billion through a private placement and an initial public offering.
The private placement, which sought about $1 billion, attracted demand of $3.7 billion, more than three times the amount on offer.
“The private placement came out with a demand of $3.7bn. So we already took the $2.5bn after a lot of argument because we are two shareholders then, ourselves and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, and we were able to convince them that, look, it’s better that we allow $2.5bn to go,” Dangote said.
He added that the group subsequently created another $1.6 billion offering to expand public ownership, with the real purpose being to democratise wealth-making.
Dangote maintained that shareholders would also have a role in determining the leadership of the company if they were dissatisfied with its performance.
“If we go to an AGM, if we are not doing the right thing, then change the leadership.
You can vote us out, and put anything that you think can do better, which I doubt very much,” he noted.
He added that the group was committed to corporate governance and protecting minority shareholders as it brings more of its businesses to the capital market.
For African investors, Dangote’s willingness to reduce his stake represents an unprecedented opportunity to own a piece of one of the continent’s most transformative industrial assets, and a rare example of wealth being shared on a continental scale.
