Sectors producing super rich in Africa

NAIROBI, KENYA: Telcoms, real estate, mining and oil are some of the sectors churning out Africa’s billionaires, Forbes 2019 list reveals.

Details

Commodities (Sugar/Cement/Flour)

Aliko Dangote from Nigeria has a networth of USD10.9 billion, his interest includes sugar, cement, flour.

Dangote Cement is Africa’s largest cement producer, which operates in eight countries. In addition, it’s the largest company listed in the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

Abdulsamad Rabiu also a Nigerian is worth USD1.6 billion, he is the founder of BUA Group, which has interests in sugar refining, cement production, manufacturing and shipping. 

Rabiu’s primary source of wealth comes from the cement business. Forbes estimates his value of shares in the Cement Company of Northern Nigeria to be at USD1.6 billion.

Mining and Oil

This sector features Nigerian born Mike Adenuga who’s the world’s second richest black person, South Africa’s only black billionaire Patrice Motsepe (worth USD2.3 billion), and another Nigerian Florunsho Alakija (worth USD1.1 billion) also has interest in the same field.

Adenuga’s Conoil Producing Company produces oil in six blocks in the Niger Delta while Motsepe’s Rainbow Minerals has interests in platinum, nickel, chrome, manganese, copper and gold.

Alakija, Nigerias’s first female billionaire is the founder of Famfa Oil, which owns a stake in OML 127, a lucrative oil block in Nigeria.

The oil industry has attracted the attention of Aliko Dangote who is working on a private oil refinery in Nigeria with a refining capacity of 6500,000 barrels a day according to Forbes.

Telecoms

Billionaires in the list with interests in the telecoms industry include Strive Masiyiwa (worth USD2.4 billion), Mike Adenuga, and Isabel dos Santos (worth USD2.3 billion).

Masiyiwa is the founder of Econet, one of the leading mobile telecoms companies in Africa. 

Adenuga owns a Nigerian mobile company, Globacom, which has more than 40 million subscribers in Nigeria and neighboring African countries.

Isabel dos Santos, oldest daughter of Angola’s former president, has a 25 per cent stake in Angolan mobile phone company Unitel.

Sudanese born Mohammed Ibrahim worth USD1.1 billion made his fortune when he sold his mobile phone company Celtel to Kuwait’s Mobile Telecommunications Company for USD3.4 billion in 2005.

Celtel, founded in 1998) was one of the first mobile company operating in Africa and the Middle East.

Investments

Patrice Motsepe owns a large stake in African Rainbow Capital, a private equity firm concentrating on investments in the financial services sector.

Isabel Dos Santos has a 25 per cent stake in Angolan Bank Banco BIC and just under 20 per cent of Portugal’s Banco BPI.

Real Estate

Some of the billionaires who have companies with interests in the real estate sector include Abdulsamad Rabiu and Mike Adenuga. 

Adenuga Company’s Cobblestone Properties owns prime residential and commercial property all over Nigeria.