Aliko Dangote (born 10 April 1957) is a Nigerian businessman and industrialist. He is best known as the founder, chairman, and CEO of the Dangote Group, the largest industrial conglomerate in West Africa. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimated his net worth at $17.8 billion in June 2023, making him the richest person in Africa, the world’s richest black person, and the world’s 94th richest person overall.
Africa’s richest person controls Dangote Industries, a closely held conglomerate. The Lagos, Nigeria-based company owns sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest cement producer, Dangote Cement, which had revenue of 1.38 trillion naira ($3.4 billion) in 2021. It also has interests in sugar, salt, oil, fertilizer and packaged food.
The majority of Dangote’s fortune is derived from his 86% stake in publicly traded Dangote Cement. He holds the shares in the company directly and through his conglomerate, Dangote Industries.
Dangote’s other publicly traded assets include stakes in Dangote Sugar, Nascon Allied Industries and United Bank for Africa. His stakes in the publicly traded companies are held directly and through Dangote Industries, which also owns closely held businesses operating in food manufacturing, fertilizer, oil and other industries.
His most valuable closely held asset is a fertilizer plant with capacity to produce up to 2.8 million tonnes of urea annually. Its net value is based on a discounted cash flow analysis by KPMG. The valuation was confirmed by outside analysts.
A $19 billion oil refinery that is currently being developed in Nigeria isn’t included in the valuation because it’s not yet operational.
The billionaire owns six residential and commercial properties in Lagos. They are valued using the capitalization method, using rental income provided by Dangote’s spokesman, Anthony Chiejina, and capitalization rates from CBRE Broll Nigeria.
His cash holdings are based on an analysis of dividends, taxes, insider transactions and other expenditures.
Biography
Education: Al-Azhar University
Africa’s richest person was born in Kano, Nigeria, in 1957. His great-grandfather became one of the richest men in west Africa trading kola and ground nuts. Dangote’s father died when he was eight, leaving him to be raised by his maternal grandfather, who was a building materials trader.
After graduating from Egypt’s Al-Azhar University with a degree in business, Dangote returned to Nigeria, where he started his own cement trading business funded by a loan from his uncle. He moved from Kano to Lagos, and ramped up imports. In 1981, he formed the corporation that later became Dangote Group.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Dangote diversified his operation to include trading sugar, flour, fish, rice, milk and iron. After traveling to Brazil to study manufacturing in 1996, Dangote shifted the company’s focus from trading to manufacturing, believing there was an opportunity to create a local operation that would profit from meeting the basic consumer needs of Nigeria’s growing population.
Dangote began building salt and sugar refineries, flour mills and a pasta factory in 1999. A year later, he bought the Benue Cement Co. from the Nigerian government. He later commissioned the Obajana Cement Plant, currently the largest cement facility in sub-Saharan Africa.
Today, Dangote Group’s main publicly traded businesses — Dangote Cement, Dangote Sugar, and Nascon Allied Industries — make up about one-third of the market capitalization of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
A practicing Muslim, Dangote goes by the title “Alhaji,” an honorific granted to a man who has completed the pilgrimage to Mecca. Twice divorced, he lives in Lagos.
Milestones
- 1957 Aliko Dangote is born in Kano, Nigeria.
- 1977 Graduates from Al-Azhar University in Cairo.
- 1977 With loan from uncle, starts his own cement trading business.
- 1981 Founds the company that later becomes Dangote Group.
- 1996 Visits Brazil to study its emerging manufacturing sector.
- 1999 Dangote starts strategic shift from trading to manufacturing.
- 2003 Commissions what is now Africa’s largest cement plant, Obajana.
- 2010 Dangote Cement debuts on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
