Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals has said its initial public offering has drawn subscriptions from over 90 countries, including investors in 51 of Africa’s 54 nations, as the company pitches the deal as the continent’s first truly pan-African share sale.
The refinery, Africa’s largest industrial investment, said the offer was the biggest ever launched on the Nigerian capital market on its opening day.
It added that the deal surpassed the previous African record within its first 10 days. Demand has come from retail investors, pension funds, institutional buyers, asset managers and fintech platforms, the company said.
The offer closes on October 27, and the company said no further extension is currently envisaged. It has stepped up investor education and engagement in key markets to widen participation before the deadline.
The company pointed to a sharp improvement in its finances to support the offer. For the nine months ended Sept. 30, it reported revenue of $22.5 billion and net profit of $4.7 billion. In the same period of 2025, it posted a loss of $117.2 million.
Revenue rose 144 percent from $9.2 billion a year earlier. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation climbed almost ninefold to $5.5 billion from $627.6 million. Operating cash flow increased more than tenfold to $3.68 billion.
The balance sheet also shifted. The refinery moved from net debt of $1.73 billion in September 2025 to net cash of $651 million in September 2026, the company said. The figures were disclosed by the company and haven’t been independently verified.
A source close to the refinery’s management said current performance has ‘progressed significantly beyond the baseline assumptions underpinning the IPO,’ suggesting the valuation used in the offer is conservative relative to recent results. The source didn’t provide the assumptions or the valuation.
The offering has also served as a test of regional market plumbing. The company said it worked with partners in Botswana, Egypt, Ethiopia and Kenya on cross-border arrangements intended to make it easier for investors in those markets to participate.
Management sees the structure as a template for future continent-wide offerings and as evidence of deepening links among African capital markets.
Fragmented exchanges, currency controls and differing regulatory regimes have long made it difficult for investors in one African country to buy shares listed in another. The company didn’t detail how the cross-border mechanisms work or how many investors used them.
The refinery said shareholders could receive dividends linked to the U.S. dollar, subject to its dividend policy and regulatory approvals. That feature could appeal to investors in a region where local-currency volatility is a recurring concern, though the company did not indicate payout size or timing.
The managers of the refinery have repeatedly framed the sale as more than a fundraising exercise. The source said it gives Africans and global investors a chance to own part of one of the continent’s most transformative industrial assets, adding that Africans shouldn’t ‘merely consume the benefits of industrialisation’ but should own the assets behind it and share in the wealth created.
The company did not disclose how much has been raised so far, how much stock is on offer, the offer price or the split of demand between domestic and foreign investors. It also didn’t say how many of the 51 African countries were represented by institutional buyers rather than individuals.
The refinery thanked regulators, issuing houses, stockbrokers, financial institutions, fintech partners, investor associations, community leaders and the investing public for supporting the offer.