Dangote Refinery plans US listing in three to four years

Africa’s richest man aims to list his 700,000 barrel-per-day oil refinery, which commenced its initial public offering Monday morning, in the United States in the next three to four years, he told the investing public in Lagos during the Fact Behind the Offer event at the Nigerian Exchange.

“In the next three years, by the grace of God, three to four years or thereabouts, we will try and also list outside the African continent, most likely in the U.S,” he said.

“By doing so, because the company will be very, very large, we will be having 10 per cent of the total America’s capacity,” he added.

The IPO hopes to democratise wealth creation across Africa by allowing the mass market that is dominated by retail investors to own a piece of the cake in the refinery, which is looking to increase capacity twofold by 2030 from the proceeds of the transaction.

Mr Dangote said the IPO is not out to raise money in the strictest sense of the word, given that it has other means of sourcing, with $46 billion already in the pipeline for the expansion of the plant and the actualisation of its 2030 strategic vision.

Rather, the share sale aspires to extend the ownership of the refinery to as many people as possible, he went further to say.

“Even if there is mishap, devaluation, the business you are investing in is a dollarized business. Don’t let the train leave you at the station,” he noted, assuring that the investment of local investors will be shielded from currency headwinds, with dividends planned to be distributed in dollars.

According to him, the private placement, which raised $2.5 billion in July, ended up returning a lot of applications after an avalanche of unforeseen interest from institutional investors and high net-worth individuals.

The $2.5 billion that was eventually raised from the private placement was the original size the refinery aspired to raise from both the placement and the IPO.

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“We refused to take one single currency other than the dollar. With the private placement, we have already met our demand,” he stated.

Come the end of the year, the refinery will be the largest company in Africa, not just in Nigeria, Mr Dangote remarked, adding that an asset of that magnitude should create value, not for a few people, but for millions of people.

The refinery and petrochemical plant is also looking to build the first train ever in the world of linear alkaline benzene, a major raw material in detergent making, with a capacity of 400,000 metric tonnes, surpassing Egypt’s 50,000 tonnes and Algeria’s 100,000 tonnes.