For the 10th time in a row, Aliko Dangote, chairman of Dangote Group, retained his spot as being the wealthiest man in Africa.
The billionaire tycoon whose businesses cut across industrial and consumer goods, and latest interest in oil and gas, had his net worth come to $12.1 billion as at Friday, January 8 2021, up by $2 billion from 2019.
According to Forbes, which tracks the wealth of billionaires in Africa and the rest of the World, the increase in Dangote’s net worth, came as a result of a 30 percent rise in the share price of Dangote Cement, by far his most valuable asset.
But it isn’t just Aliko Dangote that came through the pandemic just fine.
Forbes notes that the continent’s 18 billionaires are worth an average $4.1 billion, 12 percent more than a year ago, driven in part by Nigeria’s surging stock market, which put a smile on investors’ faces, returning about 50 percent in 2020 to become best performing globally.
The second richest on the list, with a net worth of $8.5 billion, is Nassef Sawiris of Egypt, whose largest asset is a nearly 6 percent stake in sportswear maker Adidas.
Nicky Oppenheimer of South Africa, who inherited a stake in diamond firm DeBeers and ran the company until 2012, when he sold his family’s 40 percent stake in DeBeers to mining giant AngloAmerican for $5.1 billion, came third with a net worth of $8 billion.
South African entrepreneur, Johann Rupert, and Nigerian Mike Adenuga, took the number 4th and 5th spot with a net worth of $7.2 and $6.3 billion respectively.
According to Forbes, Abdulsamad Rabiu of BUA Cement which came 6th, is the biggest gainer this year, thanks to a remarkable increase in the shares of his BUA Cement PLC, which listed on the Nigeria Stock Exchange in January 2020, and have doubled in value in the past year.
That pushed Rabiu’s fortune up by an extraordinary 77 percent, to $5.5 billion, Forbes notes.
Issad Rebrab, Naguib Sawiris, Patrice Motsepe, Koos Bekker, concluded the list of top 10 billionaires with a net worth of $4.8 billion, $3.2 billion, $3 billion and $2.8 billion respectively.
While some got richer by the billions, Forbes noted that two from the 2020 list of Africa’s richest dropped below the $1 billion mark.
The only two women billionaires from Africa have both fallen off the list, according to Forbes.
Folorunsho Alakija of Nigeria, who owns an oil exploration company, dropped below $1 billion due to lower oil prices, while Isabel dos Santos, who since 2013 has been the richest woman in Africa, was ripped off from the list after her assets in both Angola and Portugal were seized.
Forbes says it has marked Dos Santos’ frozen assets at zero.
The Forbes list tracks the wealth of African billionaires who reside in Africa or have their primary business there, thus excluding Sudanese-born billionaire Mo Ibrahim, who is a U.K. citizen and billionaire London resident Mohamed Al-Fayed, an Egyptian citizen. Strive Masiyiwa, a citizen of Zimbabwe and a London resident appears on the list due to his telecom holdings in Africa, Forbes says
The global media company, focusing on business, investing, technology, entrepreneurship, leadership, and lifestyle, says it calculated net worths using stock prices and currency exchange rates from the close of business on Friday, January 8, 2021.
According to Forbes, the 18 billionaires from Africa hail from seven different countries. South Africa and Egypt each have five billionaires, followed by Nigeria with three and Morocco with two. Altogether they are worth $73.8 billion, slightly more than the $73.4 billion aggregates worth of the 20 billionaires on last year’s list of Africa’s richest people. See the full list of Africa’s billionaires here.