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Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote is considering using Kenya as a base to raise fresh capital from African investors for his sprawling industrial empire, including his giant new refinery, he said in a conversation with the head of the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
Speaking with IFC Managing Director Makhtar Diop, Dangote outlined plans to create an investment vehicle in Kenya that would allow African savers to pool funds and invest in Dangote Group companies, a move aimed at keeping more of the continent’s private wealth at home rather than flowing into overseas property markets.
“We are now trying to now make all these things happen while Kenya puts up like a vehicle and all the investment would be done there,” Dangote said during the fireside chat, which was recorded for an IFC podcast.
The Nigerian industrialist stressed that his flagship Dangote Refinery - a 650,000 barrel-per-day plant that has faced years of delays - would eventually be listed, with dividends paid in dollars to African investors.
Alongside working with Nigerian regulators including the Central Bank, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Dangote said a Kenyan vehicle was being explored as a financial structuring platform to mobilise capital, provide liquidity and allow investors to enter and exit easily.
He did not suggest listing on the Nairobi Securities Exchange or moving operations to Kenya. Instead, the country would serve as a conduit for capital aggregation, allowing Africans to buy into Dangote’s assets without facing the currency and cross-border investment hurdles that have long fragmented the continent’s financial markets.
If realised, the plan by Nigerian billionaire to use a Kenyan investment vehicle to pool African capital for his refinery and other projects would give a significant boost to Nairobi’s long-held ambitions to become a top-tier financial hub, as Kenya’s capital seeks to model itself alongside global centers such as Dubai and Hong Kong.
“We are going to list the refinery. When we list it, we are going to ask Africans to buy shares, and we want to de-risk also their own capital,” Dangote said. “When we are paying dividends, all our dividends will be in dollars… You can choose naira, dollars, or South African rand.”
Dangote, who started his career trading four trucks of cement daily, has built a conglomerate spanning cement, fertiliser, petrochemicals and agriculture. He is now pushing into power, LNG and deep-sea ports.
He said the group’s revenue could reach $100 billion (Sh13 trillion) with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation of $30 to $35 billion (Sh3.9 to Sh4.6 trillion), potentially allowing dividend payouts of $20 billion (Sh2.6 trillion) annually.
The industrialist, who said he has never taken a dividend from the parent company and has reinvested everything, argued that African-owned assets must be made available to African savers, a critique of the continent’s reliance on foreign investment.
“For Africa to develop, some of us must take that risk in terms of opening up Africa,” he said. “We will open Africa by demonstrating that we believe in Africa, by investing our money in Africa.”
Dangote also reiterated frustrations with barriers to intra-African trade, noting he requires 38 visas to travel across the continent. He called for free movement of people, goods, and services, and flagged opportunities in rehabilitating hundreds of disused dams in Nigeria to boost irrigation and reduce conflict.
IFC’s Diop, whose institution has backed Dangote since a $478 million loan in 2005, pledged continued support. “The industrialisation of Africa requires people to take risks,” Diop said. “You have the full commitment of the World Bank Group.”
Dangote responded: “We couldn’t have asked for a better time with the World Bank… We will make the lives of Africans better.”
