Dangote opens Africa’s largest IPO at N525 a share for a 3 percent stake

Aliko Dangote opened the order book for Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals on the Nigerian Exchange on 14 September. The company is offering 4.1 billion ordinary shares at 525 naira each, about 40 US cents at the prospectus rate of 1,323.74 naira to the dollar. The base deal is meant to raise 2.15 trillion naira, or about $1.6 billion. A greenshoe could lift the take to about $2.1 billion if demand holds and the company issues more stock.

The stake on offer is roughly 3 percent of the plant. The implied equity value sits near 63 trillion naira, or about $47.6 billion on the prospectus math, above the valuation used in a July private placement that sold $2.5 billion of stock to institutions including the Africa Finance Corporation. That earlier sale was oversubscribed and, on Forbes’s count, ended up raising $3.7 billion before $1.2 billion was returned so that paper remained for the public book. It cut Dangote’s holding to about 87 percent and moved his fortune, on that ranking, to about $51 billion.

The Nigerian Exchange said applications in the first hour reached N1.476 trillion across 402,634 transactions. Those figures come from the exchange’s own account and should be read as demand signals, not as final allotments. Books stay open until 13 October. Trading is pencilled for late November. The minimum ticket is 10 shares, or N5,250 before fees, a floor the company has sold as a people’s offer. About 55 electronic channels are live: 20 bank apps, two mobile-money firms, the exchange’s Invest platform and 32 other investment apps.

The refinery sits on 2,500 hectares in the Lekki Free Trade Zone. Construction ran about ten years and cost some $20 billion. Nameplate capacity is 650,000 to 700,000 barrels a day. It is the world’s largest single-train plant. Commercial operations began in January 2024. Petrol output started in September 2024. Dangote has said he wants to lift capacity toward 1.4 million barrels a day. FirstCap, one of about two dozen co-issuers, has put full-year revenue near $28 billion if current runs hold, more than double last year’s take.

The Iran war and the squeeze on Hormuz have helped the plant sell jet fuel into western Europe. Nigeria, with about 220 million people, is Africa’s largest fuel market and has spent years importing petrol even as it exported crude. A listed Lekki plant that pays dividends in dollars, as the company has pledged, would sit at the centre of that reversal. If the listing is fully taken up, bankers say the stock could account for as much as 40 percent of the Lagos exchange’s capitalisation.

Retail buyers who hold the minimum 10 shares for 12 months are due a free extra share under an incentive scheme. The company wants as many as 10 million African subscribers. That target is a marketing number. What the book actually clears will be known only after 13 October, when the issuers decide whether to use the greenshoe and how to scale allotments if the N1.5 trillion first-hour rush proves real.

Dangote, 69, rang the opening gong in Lagos and called the sale a way to share the plant’s income with the public. The refinery is the fourth Dangote Industries unit to list in Nigeria. A secondary listing in the United States is possible later, he has said. The immediate test is narrower. Can a $20 billion industrial asset, built on swamp land and now running at full tilt, absorb a retail crowd at a $48 billion mark without a messy aftermarket. The answer arrives in November, when the shares start trading and the first dollar dividend promise meets a listed price.