Dangote Foundation to gift refinery shares to 778,000 women in 15 states

The Aliko Dangote Foundation (ADF) has said 777,907 vulnerable women across 15 Nigerian states are on track to benefit from 15.56 million shares in Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals under its Women Share Subscription Grant Initiative.

In a statement issued on Sunday by Zouera Youssofou, its managing director/CEO, the foundation said the programme aims to promote financial inclusion and empower women through equity ownership in one of Africa’s largest industrial investments.

“A total of 777,907 underprivileged Nigerian women across 15 states are set to benefit from 15.56 million shares in Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals IPO under the Aliko Dangote Foundation’s (ADF) Women Share Subscription Grant Initiative,” the statement said.

The initiative forms part of the foundation’s broader target of empowering two million vulnerable women across Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), it stated further.

The foundation said 15 state governments have committed to participating in the programme, under which each state’s financial contribution will be matched by the foundation to provide beneficiaries with shares at no cost to the beneficiaries.

The participating states include Abia, Anambra, Borno, Ebonyi, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Kebbi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Plateau, Yobe and Zamfara.

Last week, PREMIUM TIMES reported that the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals extended its ongoing $1.6 billion IPO, originally scheduled to end on 13 October, by two weeks to enable broader participation across Africa, following robust, continent-wide interest.

Since its launch, the IPO has been heralded as the biggest-ever on the continent. It is offering 4.1 billion shares at N525 per unit, with a minimum subscription of 10 shares. Its green shoe option allows an additional 30 per cent of the shares on offer to be sold if it is oversubscribed.

In July, a private placement ahead of the IPO was 270 per cent oversubscribed, even though the original plan was to raise $2.5 billion.

The IPO attracted billions of naira within minutes of opening, with a couple of trading platforms, including Bamboo and Cowrywise, experiencing downtime on the first day on account of unprecedented subscription traffic.

Shares allocation

The foundation noted that Gombe State has emerged as the first participating state to make full payment towards the initiative, marking a milestone in its implementation.

Under the arrangement, each beneficiary is eligible to receive 20 shares at an indicative allocation price of N525 per share, giving each recipient an allocation valued at N10,500.

The state government will finance 10 shares per beneficiary, while the foundation will provide a matching contribution for the remaining 10 shares.

The initiative, according to the statement, seeks to extend the benefits of the IPO beyond institutional and high net-worth individuals to vulnerable women, many of whom may be participating in the capital market for the first time.

Rather than relying solely on conventional financial assistance, the programme intends to give beneficiaries ownership of productive assets and an opportunity to participate in long-term wealth creation.

The foundation’s target of reaching two million women across all 774 local government areas underscores its ambition to expand financial inclusion and broaden individual participation in Nigeria’s capital market.

ADF acknowledged the support of the Nigerian Exchange and the Securities and Exchange Commission in advancing the initiative’s financial inclusion objectives.

The programme runs simultaneously with the foundation’s Tertiary Students Share Subscription Grant Initiative, which is designed to support eligible students looking to participate in the IPO.

Under the students’ initiative, the foundation supports applications for 10 shares on behalf of each participating eligible student at no cost.