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Good morning from Billionaires.Africa.
Here is a brief on what we published yesterday.
Wale Tinubu told Reuters that Oando is raising up to $750 million this year to fund a 100-well drilling campaign that could triple the company's production. He said the global disruption from the US-Israel-Iran conflict, now into its seventh week, has lifted investor appetite for West African crude and opened funding sources that were not available before. Gulf banks, private equity, and hedge funds are all leaning in. It is one of the clearest signals yet that the war is repricing African upstream assets in real time.
We also published a follow-up to our April 6 Investor Memo on Nathan Kirsh, picking up on Financial Mail's April 9 cover essay asking whether Kirsh could have built his $29 billion empire at home in South Africa. The R500 billion Jetro price tag dwarfs Sanlam's entire R192 billion market value — and Sanlam was the company that bought into Kirsh's South African business in 1984 before helping push him out two years later.
Top Stories
Oando raises $750 million for 100-well drilling push Tinubu said Gulf banks are showing stronger interest in African hydrocarbons, joining existing partners Afreximbank and the African Finance Corporation. Oando's first nine months of 2025 already showed a 59 percent jump in production and a 164 percent rise in profit after tax to N210 billion, after the company doubled its 2P reserves to roughly 1 billion barrels via the $783 million Nigerian Agip Oil Company acquisition in 2024.
Could Kirsh have built his $29 billion empire at home? Financial Mail devoted its April 9 cover to the question. The numbers make it uncomfortable: Jetro's R500 billion sale price dwarfs the R192 billion market cap of Sanlam, the insurer that bought 49 percent of Kirsh's South African business in 1984. Kirsh left South Africa in 1986. Forty years of building in silence in the United States produced a fortune larger than all but a handful of JSE-listed companies.
Diaspora
Nasir Qadree's $186 million Zeal Capital Partners: 7 companies in focus The former Goldman Sachs and AT&T Aspire Fund operator runs a Washington-based VC managing $186 million across fintech, future of work and health equity. Portfolio includes Esusu (the unicorn that lets renters build credit) and Stellic. Zeal also runs a Barclays-anchored $50 million Black Founders Initiative.
This week's Investor Memo is available for Elite subscribers:
