{{Nigeria’s billionaire and Africa\u2019s richest man, Aliko Dangote, is now Africa\u2019s first $20 billion man and one of the top 25 richest men in the world.}}<\/p>\n
The President\/Chief Executive of the pan-African conglomerate, the Dangote Group, has become the first African entrepreneur to lay claim to a $20 billion fortune as the stock value of his flagship holding, Dangote Cement, leaped just about three-fourths since March when Forbes last released its yearly ranking of the world\u2019s richest people.<\/p>\n
With a current market cap of $20.5 billion, Dangote Cement becomes the first Nigerian company to achieve a market capitalisation of over $20 billion. <\/p>\n
The global business and financial intelligence news magazine, Forbes, reported that Dangote\u2019s 93% stake in the cement company is now worth $19.5 billion.<\/p>\n
Added to this are his controlling stakes in other public-listed companies like Dangote Sugar and National Salt Company of Nigeria, and his significant shareholdings in other blue chips like Zenith Bank, UBA Group and Dangote Flour.<\/p>\n
He equally has extensive real estate portfolio, jets, yachts and current cash position, which includes over $300 million in recently-awarded Dangote Cement, which puts his current worth at over $20 billion.<\/p>\n
With his fortune, Dangote is richer than Russia\u2019s richest man, Alisher Usmanov, India\u2019s Lakshmi Mittal and running neck and neck with India\u2019s Mukesh Ambani. <\/p>\n
He is also catching up on such Americans as Google\u2019s billionaire founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.<\/p>\n
Dangote Cement had recorded an unprecedented surge in share price largely due to market response to its impressive results in the first quarter of this year. <\/p>\n
Its unaudited results for the three months ending March 31 showed that the company\u2019s pre-tax profit rose to $339 million, representing an 80.6% increase from last year and a strong indicator of the company\u2019s future earning potential.<\/p>\n
The results also indicate a 79.5% rise in its earnings per share over the corresponding period last year. <\/p>\n
While Forbes reasoned that other companies might eventually achieve this, it noted but it would take a bit of time. <\/p>\n
Dangote Cement currently accounts for over a quarter of the total market capitalization of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).<\/p>\n
The second largest company on the NSE is currently West Africa\u2019s largest manufacturer of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, Nigerian Breweries, with a market cap of $8.5 billion.<\/p>\n
Dangote debuted on Forbes\u2019 billionaires list in 2008 with a fortune at $3.3 billion, which dropped to $2.5 billion in 2009 and plunged further to $2.1 billion in 2010. <\/p>\n
This, however, surged 557% in 2011 to $13.8 billion after he took Dangote Cement public. <\/p>\n
He dropped to $11.2 billion in last year\u2019s rankings, but rebounded at $16.1 billion this year. Since March, his fortune has jumped another 30%.<\/p>\n
Forbes believes that Dangote still has bigger ambitions, as he reportedly told the magazine\u2019s Wealth Editor, Luisa Kroll, at Davos in 2011 that he expected his firm to have a market cap of $60 billion within five years.<\/p>\n
{NgrGuardian}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Nigeria’s billionaire and Africa\u2019s richest man, Aliko Dangote, is now Africa\u2019s first $20 billion man and one of the top 25 richest men in the world.}} The President\/Chief Executive of the pan-African conglomerate, the Dangote Group, has become the first African entrepreneur to lay claim to a $20 billion fortune as the stock value of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-8246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8246"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=8246"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=8246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}