Aliko Dangote's sugar company just got shareholders' backing for one of Nigeria's largest ever rights issues

Aliko Dangote's sugar business is going back to its shareholders for the biggest capital raise in its two-decade history.

Shareholders of Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc voted at the company's 20th Annual General Meeting in Lagos on April 15 to approve a N500 billion rights issue, a sum that ranks among the largest corporate capital raises in Nigerian history. The exercise remains subject to regulatory clearance, with the board authorized to set the terms of underwriting once approvals are secured.

The company currently has 12.146 billion shares in issue. Dangote Industries Limited holds 8.122 billion units, representing 66.87% of shares outstanding, making it the dominant shareholder. Aliko Dangote holds a separate personal stake of 653.095 million units, or 5.38% of the total. The remaining 27.7% is spread across other shareholders.

The capital raise is designed to fund an expansion agenda that goes well beyond the refinery gate. Dangote Sugar group managing director and chief executive Thabo Mabe told shareholders the company is working to secure approximately $1.3 billion to meet a commitment to produce at least 600,000 tonnes of sugar annually by 2030. The longer-term ambition is more striking still: 1.5 million metric tonnes of sugar per year from locally cultivated sugarcane, which would require developing roughly 45,000 hectares of farmland and building out crushing and processing capacity across multiple sites.

The centrepiece of that effort is the company's backward integration programme, which it has branded Sugar for Nigeria. Active projects are running in Taraba, Adamawa and Nasarawa states. In Adamawa, the company is upgrading existing refinery infrastructure in Numan, with new turbine installations and high-pressure boilers expected to generate 32 megawatts of electricity and push processing capacity to 9,800 metric tonnes per day. The Nasarawa greenfield site is being developed alongside the Numan upgrade, with 3.35 million tonnes of cane earmarked for the Nasarawa estate alone.

Chairman Arnold Ekpe, addressing shareholders at the meeting, said the 2025 financial year saw marked operational improvement despite a difficult economic environment. Revenue growth and a stronger EBITDA were highlighted as evidence that the company's strategy is gaining traction, even as the broader macroeconomic backdrop remained challenging. The company's total assets stood at N965.9 billion as at December 31, 2025, with a current market value of approximately N826 billion.

Beyond sugar, the company is expanding its revenue base into ethanol and animal feed, converting molasses and bagasse, the fibrous residue left after sugarcane crushing, into commercial by-products. The move is framed both as an efficiency play and an environmental one. Dangote Sugar also established a Ghanaian subsidiary in June 2023, signaling regional ambitions that the rights issue proceeds are expected to support.

Dangote Sugar is Nigeria's sole producer of edible refined granulated white vitamin A fortified sugar. The rights issue, once regulatory approvals are in hand, will test whether investors are prepared to back the scale of ambition the company is now publicly committing to.