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Three weeks after reaching a historic $30 billion valuation, Aliko Dangote—Africa’s richest man and founder of the Dangote Group—has seen his net worth dip below that threshold following a pullback in shares of his flagship company, Dangote Cement Plc.
According to data from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the Nigerian industrialist’s fortune dropped by about $684 million in the past 24 hours, falling from $30.5 billion at the start of trading on Tuesday, November 11, to roughly $29.8 billion as of this report.
Investor caution pulls Dangote wealth lower
The decline marks the first notable adjustment in Dangote’s wealth since he became the first African billionaire to cross the $30 billion mark earlier this month. The drop is largely tied to his controlling 87.45 percent stake in Dangote Cement, which remains one of the biggest publicly listed companies in Nigeria by market capitalization and Africa’s leading cement producer.
Dangote Cement shares on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) slid about 10 percent over the past day. The sell-off followed investor concerns over a recently signed tax law that will raise the capital gains tax (CGT) rate from a flat 10 percent to match the Companies Income Tax rate of 30 percent, depending on profit levels. The new system is set to take effect in 2026 and has prompted a cautious mood among domestic investors.
Dangote loses $650 million as cement dips
The stock’s decline has erased roughly $650 million from the market value of Dangote’s holding, reducing it from more than $6.7 billion to around $6.05 billion.
The movement comes at a time when Dangote Cement is locked in a competitive race with MTN Nigeria Plc—the local arm of the South African telecom group—to become the first Nigerian-listed company to post an annual profit exceeding N1 trillion ($692 million).
Despite the recent market setback, Dangote Cement has delivered a solid year. The company reported a near threefold jump in profit to N743.3 billion ($514.5 million) for the nine months ended Sept. 30, 2025, compared with N279.1 billion ($193.4 million) in the same period a year earlier.
Dangote’s billion-dollar empire keeps rising
In the third quarter alone, the company generated N222.8 billion ($154.4 million) in profit on revenue of N1.08 trillion ($748.6 million). The results reinforce Dangote Cement’s position as one of Africa’s most profitable industrial firms and underline its influence in regional trade, with exports reaching markets including Cameroon, Ghana, and Congo.
While the recent dip trimmed Dangote’s fortune slightly below the $30 billion line, the billionaire’s wealth remains closely tied to the performance of Nigeria’s stock market and the broader outlook for the cement industry—a sector he has dominated for nearly two decades.
