🍞 Dangote's IPO countdown

Hello!!

Adetomiwa here 👋🏽.

Rumours about the Nigerian government considering changing the country’s name have been circulating for days. The FG has now responded: they have no intention of changing the country’s name. The press release practically treated the rumour like an insult to common sense — although, to be fair, this is a country where the national anthem suddenly changed back to one from 1978 not long after the current president took office. Nigerians have learned to keep an open mind.

In today’s newsletter: why Dangote Refinery’s IPO could reshape African investing, Britain’s new investment ambition, and the real state of Nigeria’s non-oil exports.

Two years after becoming fully operational, Dangote Refinery is ready to take on a new challenge: selling shares to the public.

Dangote says the company plans to launch an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in September. An IPO is basically when a private company decides to list on the stock market and sell ownership shares to public investors for the first time. So instead of the company being owned mainly by Dangote and a small group of insiders, regular people, pension funds, institutions, and investment firms can buy shares and become part-owners too. The company raises capital from those sales, and investors buy in, hoping the business grows over time, making the shares more valuable. It’s essentially crowdfunding, but for billion-dollar corporations and with way more paperwork.

Investors are ready
According to Dangote, investor demand is already approaching $2 billion through private placement requests alone. Private placements happen before an IPO officially opens, usually involving wealthy investors and institutions trying to secure early allocations.

But interestingly, Dangote says they don’t want the refinery swallowed up by a few wealthy investors. “Our target really is to get the larger part of society to buy,” he said, comparing the vision to early investors buying into companies like Apple or Amazon before their massive rise.

Femi Otedola (Aliko Dangote’s ‘bestie’) has already publicly announced plans to invest $100 million personally after selling his 77% controlling stake in Geregu Power, valued at $750 million.

Pan-African ambition
One of the more interesting angles here is Dangote’s push for a pan-African IPO. The idea is reportedly to list across multiple exchanges and allow investors from across the continent to participate. If regulators cooperate, it could deepen liquidity in African capital markets and create one of the few truly continent-wide investment plays.

It could also shake things up in a positive way. African stock markets are still concentrated in sectors like banking and telecoms. A refinery listing of this scale could pull more investor attention toward infrastructure, manufacturing, and industrial projects.

Hype or long-term value?
Right now, the refinery represents industrial ambition, import substitution, and the idea that Africa can actually build mega-projects instead of just exporting raw materials forever. But IPOs are ultimately judged by performance, not excitement.
Investors will eventually want answers to harder questions: profitability, debt levels, operational efficiency, fuel pricing risks, government policy stability, and how competitive the refinery remains globally over time. Because history is full of companies that looked unstoppable during IPO season and then introduced shareholders to the concept of suffering.

Your portfolio angle: This could become one of the most important listings in African markets in years. For Nigerian and African investors, it offers exposure to energy infrastructure instead of the usual banking-heavy portfolios dominating local exchanges. The risk is that energy markets are volatile, refinery operations are expensive, and Nigerian policy environments can change at any time.

✋🏾 Protect the non-oil exports: Nigeria’s non-oil export sector looks strong on paper, but a new report says rising logistics and energy costs are eroding those gains. The 3T Impex Non-Oil Export Index Report 2026, which analysed over 87,000 export transactions between 2021 and 2025, found that while exporters remain highly optimistic about demand and future growth, the cost of moving goods is becoming a major barrier, especially for smaller businesses trying to stay competitive. The report highlights a clear mismatch between optimism and reality: strong sales growth and confidence on one side, but weak infrastructure and rising operational costs on the other. High energy costs, in particular, are pushing many exporters to stick with raw commodities instead of manufacturing and adding value locally. Exports are also becoming increasingly concentrated through Lagos ports, making it harder for MSMEs to participate. Even though total export value rose to $6.17 billion in 2025, the report warns that without urgent reforms like port diversification, better power supply for export zones, and improved export financing, the sector’s growth could remain uneven and exclusionary.

🏊🏽‍♀️ Thankfully, there’s some deep-sea diversification progress: The Federal Government says it has completed approvals and regulatory steps for five major deep-seaport projects across the country, including planned ports in Badagry (Lagos), Olokola (Ondo), Ibom (Akwa Ibom), Bakassi (Cross River) and Bonny (Rivers). According to the Nigerian Ports Authority, talks with investors are still ongoing, but the groundwork is already in place to move the projects forward 🤞🏽. The goal is to expand Nigeria’s capacity to handle larger cargo ships, reduce pressure on existing ports, and strengthen the country’s role as a key trade gateway for West and Central Africa. Officials say the push is part of a wider strategy to modernise Nigeria’s maritime sector through new infrastructure, upgrades to existing ports, and digital systems like the National Single Window to speed up cargo clearance. The government also highlighted reduced vessel delays and a safer Gulf of Guinea following Nigeria’s “Deep Blue Project”, which Nigeria launched in 2021 to “tackle maritime security on land, sea, and air”. Across the region, similar investments are happening in Ghana, Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire. More than $27 billion worth of port projects are reportedly underway as West Africa positions itself as a leader in global trade flows.

✈️ Wema Bank joining the “bigger leagues”: Wema Bank, one of Nigeria’s oldest and most successful banks, says it is on track to join Nigeria’s tier-one banking group soon, backed by strong profit growth, fresh capital raising, and an ongoing expansion push. The bank’s CEO, Moruf Oseni, pointed to a steady rise in performance over the past three years, with profit growing from N42 billion to N102.5 billion and then jumping to about N221.9 billion in 2025. He described this as the result of deliberate reforms, tighter execution, and long-term investments that are now beginning to pay off. The bank also says it is balancing growth with caution on dividends, choosing to keep more capital for future opportunities instead of paying out aggressively. New funds raised will go into expanding loans, strengthening its digital banking systems, and improving cybersecurity. Assets rose to N5.07 trillion, while earnings per share also climbed, showing stronger overall performance. Management says it is now focusing on expanding into commercially viable locations across Nigeria as part of its “follow-the-money” growth strategy, as it marks 80 years of operations.

According to a Bloomberg exclusive, the UK is considering a new invite-only investor visa that would grant anyone willing to invest £5 million in AI, clean energy, life sciences, or fast-growing tech permanent residency after three years.

This new plan is the UK’s attempt at getting its billionaires back (and maybe inviting new ones)

Nearly 11,000 millionaires left the UK in 2024, and 16,500 more are predicted to have exited in 2025, most of them heading for the UAE, Italy, or Turkey after Labour abolished the non-domiciled tax regime in April 2025.

The old Tier 1 Investor Visa was scrapped in 2022 because it became a money-laundering mess, so the new version is pitching itself as the cleaner, more exclusive replacement. The UK made it clear that this does NOT include real estate. The goal is reportedly to attract entrepreneurs and investors capable of long-term business expansion and job creation rather than passive wealth accumulation tactics. They will also conduct intense background checks to ensure no millionaires with crime-related skeletons in their closets are invited.

At £5 million minimum, it's also considerably more expensive than the competition (Portugal starts at €500,000, Greece at €250,000, the US at roughly $1 million).

Bringing it home

Major Nigerian financial institutions — most notably Zenith Bank, GTCo and Moniepoint — have been deepening their UK presence, and the British government has been getting friendlier with Nigeria at the diplomatic level. Whether any of that translates into invitations for Nigeria's elite under the new scheme is a conversation for another day, but the dots are at least visible.

For the average Nigerian, though, this doesn't move the needle much. Nigeria was the UK's second-largest migrant source country in 2024, with an estimated 120,000 Nigerians relocating to Britain. Meanwhile, the UK has been steadily tightening visa routes for students, healthcare workers, and skilled professionals — the routes most Nigerians actually use. The picture being painted is a door getting narrower for the many and wider for the 1% few. That contrast is going to be hard to ignore.

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