Olushola Omogbehin
Aliko Dangote, the president of Dangote Industries Limited, has revealed that ordinary Nigerians such as drivers, cooks, traders and others will have the privilege to become shareholders in the Dangote Petroleum Refinery through its proposed Initial Public Offering (IPO).
He made this revelation in Lagos on Monday at the signing ceremony for the registration documents of the proposed IPO, which he called “IPO for the people”.
Designed to widen ownership of the 700,000-barrel-per-day refinery, the public offer comprises 4.1 billion ordinary shares priced at ₦525 each. It is expected to raise slightly above ₦2 trillion with minimum subscription fixed at 10 shares.
According to Dangote, the objective of the share offer to the public is to raise funds for the refinery’s planned expansion and to allowing ordinary Nigerians and other Africans to acquire a stake in the facility.
He said: “But it is not only to fund the expansion of the refinery. What we are trying to do is to make sure majority of all these my, our drivers, our cooks, our servants, our managers, everybody, they will have an opportunity to have a stake in this refinery,” he said.
“This is why we have actually called it the IPO for the people. This is why we say that this is democratising.
“There is no segregation on who can own these shares. We want every human being living on the continent to be part of this action.”
Speaking further on the benefit of this offer to the public, he pointed to the potential for investors to earn dividends in dollars while maintaining that such returns could help shareholders meet expenses outside Nigeria. The signed prospectus values the offer at about $1.6 billion and the refinery at approximately $49 billion.
He said the refinery aim of doing this is to drive industrialisation across Africa because reliable energy supply was essential to achieving that objective.
“Our Vision 2030 mantra at the Dangote Group is ‘accelerating Africa’s industrialisation.’ We have learned the hard way, and we cannot industrialise if we do not have energy security,” he said.
He appealed to Nigerians and other Africans to participate in developing the continent’s economies as the public offer is scheduled to open on September 14 and close on October 13.
