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The Chairman of Dangote Industries Limited (DIL), Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has said
the initial public offering (IPO) of Dangote Petroleum Refinery failed to achieve its ambitious target of attracting 10 million investors.
Dangote disclosed this at the 25th annual conference of the Women in Management, Business and Public Service (WIMBIZ) in Lagos.
Dangote, however, said the public offer recorded significant participation, attracting millions of investors despite not reaching the projected figure.
He attributed the shortfall largely to the limited subscription period and inadequate awareness among prospective investors about how to participate in the offer.
Speaking on the outcome, he said the company was yet to establish the final number of subscribers but expressed satisfaction with the level of public response.
According to him, the participation recorded was substantial when compared with some of the biggest public offers in Nigeria and other countries.
Dangote cited the public offering by GTBank, which he said attracted about 200,000 investors, as well as Safaricom’s share offer in Kenya, which recorded fewer than 900,000 participants.
He also referred to Saudi Aramco’s global IPO, which attracted approximately five million investors, arguing that the refinery’s offer had generated significant interest by comparison.
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“We didn’t hit the 10 million because of time constraint, and a lot of people, they didn’t know how to access,” he said.
Despite missing the target, Dangote said the response reflected growing confidence in investment opportunities offered by African businesses, with more people increasingly willing to move their savings into formal investment channels.
He described the development as evidence of growing trust in African-owned enterprises and the willingness of ordinary people to participate in businesses traditionally associated with wealthy investors.
The refinery’s public offer, tagged “The People’s IPO”, was conceived to expand public ownership of the facility by giving ordinary Nigerians an opportunity to acquire shares in the country’s largest petroleum refinery.
The offer involved 4.1 billion shares at N525 each, with a minimum subscription of 10 shares, representing an entry investment of N5,250.
It opened on September 14 and was initially scheduled to close earlier before the deadline was extended to October 27.
Ahead of the exercise, Dangote had set a target of bringing 10 million retail investors into the ownership structure of the refinery, in what was presented as an effort to democratise access to the business and broaden participation in Nigeria’s capital market.
The initiative was also expected to enable more Nigerians to share in the refinery’s potential growth rather than leave ownership largely in the hands of institutional investors and wealthy individuals.
Although the 10 million-investor ambition was not realised, Dangote maintained that the strong subscription response demonstrated increasing public appetite for investment in indigenous businesses.
