Prestigious magazine owned by the Forbes family has released its 2021 ‘Forbes Africa Richest People’, a ranking based on net worth and visible investments, Njenje Media News reports.
According to Forbes.com, The continent’s 18 billionaires are worth an average $4.1 billion, 12% more than a year ago, driven in part by Nigeria’s surging stock market. For the tenth year in a row, Aliko Dangote of Nigeria is the continent’s richest person, worth $12.1 billion, up by $2 billion from last year’s list thanks to a roughly 30% rise in the share price of Dangote Cement, by far his most valuable asset. The second richest is Nassef Sawiris of Egypt, whose largest asset is a nearly 6% stake in sportswear maker Adidas. At number three: 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% stake in DeBeers to mining giant AngloAmerican for $5.1 billion.
Forbes.com says the biggest gainer this year is another Nigerian cement tycoon, Abdulsamad Rabiu. Remarkably, shares of his BUA Cement PLC, which listed on the Nigeria Stock Exchange in January 2020, have doubled in value in the past year. That pushed Rabiu’s fortune up by an extraordinary 77%, to $5.5 billion. One thing to note: Rabiu and his son together own about 97% of the company, giving the company a tiny public float. The Nigerian Stock Exchange requires that either 20% or more of a company’s shares to be floated to the public, or that the floated shares are worth at least 20 billion naira — about $50 million — a paltry sum, to be sure. A spokesman for the Nigerian Stock Exchange told Forbes that BUA Cement meets the second requirement. (Forbes discounts the value of stakes when the public float of a company is less than 5%.) .
The list is stated below;
| LIST | Rank | Name | Net Worth | Age | Origin of Wealth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Aliko Dangote | $12.1 B | 63 | cement, sugar | |
| #2 | Nassef Sawiris | $8.5 B | 60 | construction, investments | |
| #3 | Nicky Oppenheimer | $8 B | 75 | diamonds | |
| #4 | Johann Rupert | $7.2 B | 70 | luxury goods | |
| #5 | Mike Adenuga | $6.3 B | 67 | telecom, oil | |
| #6 | Abdulsamad Rabiu | $5.5 B | 60 | cement, sugar | |
| #7 | Issad Rebrab | $4.8 B | 77 | food | |
| #8 | Naguib Sawiris | $3.2 B | 66 | telecom | |
| #9 | Patrice Motsepe | $3 B | 59 | mining | |
| #10 | Koos Bekker | $2.8 B | 68 | media, investments | |
| #11 | Mohamed Mansour | $2.5 B | 73 | diversified | |
| #12 | Aziz Akhannouch | $2 B | 60 | petroleum, diversified | |
| #13 | Mohammed Dewji | $1.6 B | 45 | diversified | |
| #14 | Youssef Mansour | $1.5 B | 75 | diversified | |
| #15 | Othman Benjelloun | $1.3 B | 88 | banking, insurance | |
| #16 | Michiel Le Roux | $1.2 B | 71 | banking | |
| #16 | Strive Masiyiwa | $1.2 B | 60 | telecom | |
| #18 | Yasseen Mansour | $1.1 B | 59 | diversified |
