Dangote opens Africa's largest IPO at N525 a share after N1.5 trillion in day-one orders

Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals opened its share sale on Monday with an offer that the company and the Nigerian Exchange both describe as the largest initial public offering in African history. The plant is selling 4.1 billion newly issued shares at 525 naira each. At that price the base deal raises 2.15 trillion naira, about $1.6 billion at the 1,324 naira exchange rate used in the prospectus. A greenshoe of up to 30 percent could lift proceeds to about $2.1 billion if demand holds.

BusinessDay reported that subscriptions reached 1.5 trillion naira within the first six hours. Aliko Dangote presented the deal at the Exchange in Marina, Lagos, and called it a people's offering. The minimum application is 10 shares, or 5,250 naira. Vetiva Advisory Services is lead issuing house. Joint houses include Chapel Hill Denham, Absa Capital Markets, Afrinvest Capital and Stanbic IBTC Capital. Books close on 13 October. Trading is scheduled for late November.

The new shares are a primary issue. Cash goes to the refinery, not to selling shareholders, and will represent about 3.3 percent of the enlarged capital. At 525 naira the implied value of the company is about 63 trillion to 65 trillion naira, or roughly $47 billion to $49 billion depending on the naira print used that day. A $2.5 billion private placement in July was 3.7 times subscribed, or 270 percent oversubscribed on Premium Times' count, and valued the plant nearer $40 billion. Chief executive David Bird told Reuters the earlier discount reflected lock-up terms that institutions accepted.

The Lekki plant processes 700,000 barrels of crude a day. It reached full capacity this year after a decade of construction that Dangote Group has costed at $20 billion. First-half 2026 profit after tax was $1.82 billion on revenue of more than $13 billion, after a $476 million loss in 2025. Management credits wider refining margins after the Iran war disrupted supply and opened European buyers for Nigerian diesel and jet fuel. The stated use of proceeds is a $14.3 billion expansion that would double capacity to 1.4 million barrels a day by 2029. Even the full greenshoe covers only a slice of that bill. Internally generated cash, bonds and further private placements are still on the list.

Institutional names already in the register include the Africa Finance Corporation and, according to Premium Times, interest from Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. Pan-African Refinery Investment SPV, a Lilium Capital Group unit, underwrote $600 million of the July placement. Dangote has also talked about a matching plant at Lamu in Kenya and about a later secondary listing in the United States.

The political economy of the offer is as important as the order book. Nigeria has spent years importing petrol while the Lekki complex ramped up. A listing that pulls in teachers, civil servants and the diaspora is meant to lock public consent around a plant that still sits inside a group controlled by one man. It also tests whether Lagos can price and settle a multi-billion-dollar industrial issue without the deal migrating wholesale to London or New York.

Two numbers will decide if that test is passed. The first is the coverage ratio when books close on 13 October. The second is whether the November listing holds the 525 naira handle once lock-ups start to roll off. If both hold, Dangote Cement, Dangote Sugar and the refinery would form an equity cluster the company projects at about 83.5 trillion naira, the largest on the Nigerian Exchange. If either slips, the expansion timetable to 1.4 million barrels a day becomes a funding problem rather than an engineering one.