Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals signed its initial public offering documents in Lagos on Monday, confirming terms for what backers are calling Africa’s biggest-ever share sale.
The offer comprises 4.1 billion ordinary shares priced at 525 naira ($0.40) each, with a minimum subscription of just 10 shares, or roughly $4. The offer, which opens September 14 and closes October 13 pending final regulatory sign-off, could raise about 2.15 trillion naira ($1.63 billion) at the base size, with a further allotment possible if demand exceeds it.
Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the offer to proceed. Aliko Dangote, president of Dangote Industries, framed the pricing as a deliberate attempt to widen ownership beyond Nigeria’s traditional investor class. “This is the IPO for the people. There is no segregation on who can own the shares,” he said at the signing ceremony, adding that drivers, cooks, traders, domestic staff and managers would all have the chance to hold a stake.
He said the company was targeting 10 million shareholders from across Africa and beyond, a figure that would dwarf the roughly 181,000 retail investors who took part in Nigeria’s largest previous single-transaction share sale, according to FirstCap managing director Ukandu Ukandu.
To hit that number, Dangote Refinery is working with fintech platforms, point-of-sale operators and agency banking networks to let buyers subscribe through mobile apps and bank platforms rather than relying solely on traditional stockbrokers, a person familiar with the arrangements told Bloomberg. Stanbic IBTC Capital chief executive Oladele Sotubo said the offer was structured specifically to let ordinary Nigerians acquire shares electronically.
Despite Dangote’s stated goal of continent-wide participation, the offer is structured for Nigeria’s market. Retail subscriptions are expected to run through Nigerian bank verification numbers, brokers and the Central Securities Clearing System, and it remains unclear how investors in other African countries, without a Nigerian bank account or BVN, would subscribe directly.
Diaspora Nigerians and foreign investors are expected to participate through licensed brokers, though the mechanics for non-Nigerian Africans have not been detailed in the offer documents reviewed so far. Management has also ruled out a foreign listing for at least three years, according to Dangote Petroleum and Petrochemicals chief executive David Bird, who said the company needs a longer audited public track record before considering an international exchange such as London.
Earlier this year, Dangote had said he wanted the refinery listed across multiple African exchanges.
The signed prospectus values the 700,000-barrel-per-day refinery at about $49 billion, according to Vanguard, up from earlier company estimates in the $20 billion to $25 billion range tied largely to construction cost. Nigeria’s state oil company NNPC holds a separate 7.25% equity stake, unaffected by the new share sale.
Dangote said proceeds would fund an expansion to 1.4 million barrels per day and that dividends could be paid in naira or US dollars, given the refinery’s foreign-currency earnings from fuel and petrochemical exports. Whether the offer meets its 10-million-shareholder target, and whether that ownership genuinely extends beyond Nigeria’s borders, will depend on details still to be published in the final prospectus ahead of the September 14 opening.
