Aliko Dangote says the share sale for his oil refinery didn’t reach its target of 10 million investors. He said so last week in Lagos, at the 25th annual conference of Women in Management, Business and Public Service (WIMBIZ). He blamed time running out, and the fact that “a lot of people, they didn’t know how to access” it.
The money wasn’t the problem. Orders came to about ₦6.4 trillion, or about KES 618 billion. That’s roughly three times the ₦2.15 trillion the company was asking for, about KES 208 billion. And Dangote doesn’t yet know how many people applied. “We cannot tell the figure right away,” he said.
The company selling the shares is Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals FZE. It runs one refinery in the Lekki Free Zone outside Lagos, built for about USD 20 billion, or about KES 2.6 trillion. At ₦2.15 trillion, about USD 1.6 billion, the sale is the largest IPO Africa has had. The money goes towards doubling the refinery to 1.4 million barrels a day by 2029.
Dangote branded the sale “The People’s IPO”. It offered 4.1 billion new shares at ₦525 each, about KES 50, and the smallest application was 10 shares for ₦5,250, about KES 510. The offer opened on 14th September 2026 and was due to close on 13th October. Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) then allowed two more weeks, to 27th October.
How a sale can be oversubscribed and still miss
The ₦6.4 trillion counts money and the 10 million counts people. A pension fund or a bank can put in an order worth billions of naira in one application. A first-time investor putting in ₦5,250 adds one person and almost no money. So the order book can fill several times over while the headcount stays well short. If 10 million people had each applied for the minimum, that would come to ₦52.5 billion, about 2.4% of what the company wanted to raise. Dangote made the same point when the extension was announced: “it is not about the amount of money. It is about the number of people who will have the opportunity to participate in this offer.”
The only count so far comes from people close to the deal. More than 2 million investors had applied through digital channels before the close. Dangote compared the result with other big share sales. He put Nigeria’s GTBank at about 200,000 investors and Saudi Aramco at about five million. “Even in Kenya, Safaricom was the largest, less than 900,000,” he said. He’s right on that one. Safaricom’s 2008 IPO brought in 860,000 new investors. Of Aramco’s five million, he said: “I’m sure we are not that far away.”
Temi Popoola, chief executive of Nigerian Exchange Group, said in October that about 12 million Nigerians take part in the capital market, about 5% of the population, and only hundreds of thousands trade actively. So Dangote’s target was close to the whole of Nigeria’s existing investor base, most of whom don’t trade actively. Anyone new had to open an investment account before they could apply.
Outside Nigeria, the rules got in the way
Dangote said in October that applications came from 120 countries, including all 54 African countries. That’s his count, and the company hasn’t published a breakdown.
The prospectus didn’t register the sale as a public offer outside Nigeria, so investors elsewhere had to rely on their own country’s rules or on a few approved online platforms. Each country has its own securities regulator, and shares sold to the public there usually need its sign-off. That’s why the company used the extension to set up depositary receipts in other markets. These are certificates sold on a local exchange, each standing for one share held in Nigeria. Edoh Kossi Amenounve, who runs the BRVM, the regional stock exchange for eight West African countries, said the talks on opening the offer to other markets produced no common approach.
What happens to the shares now
With three times more money than shares, most applicants won’t get everything they asked for. The company can sell up to 30% more shares if the SEC agrees, and it hasn’t said whether it will. Under the revised timetable, the basis of allotment, the rule for who gets how many shares, goes to the SEC on 10th November. Approval is targeted for 17th November. Trading on the Nigerian Exchange could start around 8th December, though that date isn’t confirmed.
Where Kenyan applicants stand
In September, we reported that the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) hadn’t received any application to sell the offer in Kenya. That changed on 5th October, when the CMA approved a Kenyan route through global depository receipts (GDRs) run by Renaissance Capital (Kenya). Each GDR cost KES 53.50 and the minimum was cut to 10 GDRs, or KES 535. The Kenyan offer was extended to 27th October along with the Nigerian one. Seven other licensed firms, including SBG Securities and Stanbic Bank, helped clients apply through Nigerian partners.
If you applied through Renaissance, the GDR information memorandum has the catches. Renaissance has no guaranteed allocation, because the refinery’s board decides how many shares go to it. If Kenyan applications or the shares Renaissance gets come to less than KES 50 million, the offer fails and your money comes back without interest. The GDRs then list on the Nairobi Securities Exchange about 15 business days after allotment, but only if Nigeria’s SEC approves. If it doesn’t, you hold the shares through Renaissance and sell them on the Nigerian Exchange.
The shares are priced in naira, so if the naira falls against the shilling, your GDRs lose value in KES even when the share price doesn’t move. Funny, KES 53.50 is about 5% more than ₦525 at today’s rate, and the section of the memorandum meant to explain that price is left blank. And as the CMA’s notice points out, none of this buys you a piece of the refinery Dangote is planning in Lamu.
We think the headcount tells you more than the money does. An investment account, and outside Nigeria an approved route in your own country, both take time to set up, and this offer was open for about six weeks. For Kenyan applicants, the next thing to watch is Renaissance’s allotment announcement, which will say how many GDRs you got.
Join the discussion