…reveals 10m shareholders target
Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, has disclosed that the ongoing Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals has already raised the amount of money the company set out to attract.
Dangote said the next focus was to broaden ownership of the refinery, with the company targeting as many as 10 million shareholders across Africa.
He made this known during a video interview with CNN International correspondent, Larry Madowo, shared on Madowo’s X page on Monday.
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Madowo had told the billionaire about the growing interest among Nigerians on social media, with some users inspecting Dangote’s trucks and visiting his cement factories while describing themselves as investors.
Responding, Dangote said interest in the IPO had extended beyond Nigeria.
“I think this IPO is not only for Nigerians. We’ve got a lot of interest from all over Africa, and we’re selling shares. We’re trying to bring in democracy to our stock markets,” he said.
According to him, the company wants to distribute ownership among a large number of investors rather than have the shares concentrated in the hands of a few people.
“We’re looking at having 10 million shareholders,” Dangote said.
When asked to confirm whether he was confident about achieving the target, the billionaire said the company had already secured the funds it was looking for.
“I’m 100 per cent sure we get 10 million shareholders. I mean, we’ve already raised the money that we’re looking for, so this is just to make sure we spread the wealth across the continent,” he said.
Dangote added that the number of shareholders could eventually be so large that the company might need a stadium to accommodate them at its annual general meeting.