Aliko Dangote plans to offer shares in his oil-refining company on multiple African stock exchanges, according to the head of the Nairobi Securities Exchange, Plc.
Dangote appointed Stanbic IBTC Capital Ltd., Vetiva Advisory Services Ltd. and FirstCap Ltd. to advise on the IPO for Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals Fze, FirstCap Chief Executive Officer Ukandu Ukandu said by email.
“The plan is to structure a pan-African IPO,” Frank Mwiti, CEO of the Nairobi exchange said after a meeting last week between the heads of African exchanges and billionaire Dangote in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital.
A spokesman for the Dangote Group confirmed the meeting between exchange officials, but declined to disclose details.
The share sale across multiple African exchanges would be a first for the continent. It will help deepen equity markets in Nigeria, which is poised to return to the FTSE Russell frontier-markets benchmark, and other nations where it lists. Dangote plans to expand the refinery’s capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day over the next three years, rivaling fellow billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s facility in India. Dangote’s refinery currently has the capacity to process 650,000 barrels of oil per day. The African Export-Import Bank last month said it’s underwritten $2.5 billion of a $4 billion syndicated facility intended for the refinery expansion.
The facility’s expansion is part of at least $40 billion that Dangote plans to spend to fund a growth drive over the next five years that also includes quadrupling fertilizer output and more than doubling its oil refinery capacity.
Apart from Nigeria, the plant has been selling refined fuel to African nations, which are struggling to obtain gasoline and diesel supplies because of the US-Israel war on Iran.
Dangote, the chairman of the refinery, earlier this month met with officials of the Nigerian Exchange Group as well as member organizations of the African Securities Exchanges Association to discuss enabling investor participation across African markets in the IPO, according to a spokesman for the Nigerian exchange.
Source: Bloomberg
