Going by assertions of Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, regarding equity participation in the Dangote Oil Refinery, shares will become available for public acquisition for Nigerians within the next two to three months.
In February, Aliko Dangote disclosed during a press tour of the Dangote Refinery that Nigerians will have the opportunity to invest directly in the Dangote Refinery in the next four to five months.
While potential investors anticipate the listing, the head of the Nairobi Securities Exchange Plc recently revealed that Aliko Dangote intends to pursue a multiple-listing strategy, offering equity in his refinery across several African capital markets.
An email from FirstCap CEO Ukandu, as seen on Bloomberg, showed that Dangote designated Stanbic IBTC Capital Ltd., Vetiva Advisory Services Ltd., and FirstCap Ltd. to provide advice on the IPO for Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals FZE.
“The plan is to structure a pan-African IPO,” Frank Mwiti, CEO of the Nairobi exchange, said after a meeting last week between the heads of African exchanges and billionaire Dangote in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital.
This sort of multiple-listing would represent a historic milestone for the continent, basically the first in Africa. Such a move is expected to facilitate the advancement of stock exchanges in Nigeria, which is currently positioned to rejoin the FTSE Russell frontier-markets benchmark, and other participating countries where the refinery is listed.
In July last year, Aliko Dangote announced plans to float his oil refinery on the stock market, following public scrutiny that the billionaire preferred foreign partnerships.
“At the moment, our main interest is to list on the exchange, so that every living Nigerian can own part of the refinery,” he stated.
“Somebody asked me a question, is it 5 or 10 percent you want to sell, and I said that when we are going to sell the shares, we will not put a cap, if they happen to buy 55% and I own 45%, so be it,” he added.
By October, the CEO of the Dangote Group, during an interview with S&P Global, disclosed plans to sell at least 5% of the Dangote Refinery on the Nigerian Exchange between then and the current year.
“We don’t want to keep more than 65 to 70 per cent. Shares will be offered incrementally, depending on investor appetite and market depth,” he stated.
The declaration came as he announced his intention to double his oil refining operations, thereby increasing production capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day.
The Dangote Group built the $20 billion factory, which currently has the capacity to refine up to 650,000 barrels of crude oil each day.
Source: Business Insider Africa