Aliko Dangote targets September London listing for Dangote Cement in busiest year of his business life

Aliko Dangote is targeting September for a secondary listing of Dangote Cement on the London Stock Exchange, reviving a plan that stalled eight years ago and setting up what could be the most consequential year in the history of his conglomerate's relationship with global capital markets.

Africa's richest man confirmed the plan in an interview published by the Financial Times on Thursday, telling the newspaper he had appointed JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Standard Bank as advisers on the proposed transaction. About 10 percent of the company's shares would be sold to outside investors through the London listing, he said, while the primary listing on the Nigerian Exchange, where the stock has traded since 2010, would be maintained.

"We want to do a dual listing. We've been thinking about it for seven to 10 years," Dangote told the FT. He said his businesses had entered "the busiest period" of his life and attributed the decision to revive the plan to regulatory changes introduced by the UK's Financial Conduct Authority. "We finally decided that London was a good choice because the minimum listing requirements were lowered," he said.

The FCA has been overhauling its listing rules since 2024 in an effort to reverse years of decline in London's attractiveness as a venue for large equity offerings, competing against New York and Amsterdam for blue-chip listings. Dangote Cement, which operates across 11 African countries with installed capacity of 55 million metric tonnes per year and is Africa's largest cement producer by output, would represent exactly the kind of large-capitalisation African issuer the exchange has been trying to attract.

The company reported a net profit of $732 million for the 2025 financial year, up 102% year on year, on revenues of $3.12 billion. In the first quarter of 2026, pre-tax profit rose a further 35%, partly driven by a 71.6% surge in clinker exports from Nigeria. The stock has gained more than 70 percent on the NGX this year. Its current market capitalisation on the Lagos exchange stands at approximately $13 billion.

Dangote first attempted to list the cement business in London in 2018, appointing prominent independent directors to the board at the time including barrister Cherie Blair and former Xstrata chief executive Mick Davis. Stringent regulatory requirements and the demands of constructing the $20 billion Dangote Petroleum Refinery in Lekki, Lagos, eventually pulled attention away from the listing process. The refinery, which processes 650,000 barrels per day and is the world's largest single-train oil refinery, reached operational stage in early 2024 and has since become the most high-profile business in the conglomerate.

The London cement listing is only one transaction in what Dangote described as a broader and simultaneous capital markets expansion. He told the FT he plans to sell up to 15 percent of the refinery in an IPO targeting the Nigerian Exchange and multiple other African bourses. He is also preparing a separate offering for Dangote Industries' fertiliser subsidiary. Together, the three transactions would represent the largest equity market expansion in the group's history and, if successful, a significant test of whether African capital markets and international exchanges can absorb major African industrial issuances in a single cycle.

Dangote's net worth stood at $35.4 billion on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index in May 2026, an increase of $5.4 billion year to date, making him Africa's richest person and the only African currently ranked among the world's 100 wealthiest individuals. He also said he plans to increase Dangote Cement's annual production capacity from 60 million tonnes to 100 million tonnes by 2030, with new plant construction already underway in Nigeria targeting 6 million additional tonnes for export. He added, in a remark that will be widely noted, that he had previously considered a bid for Arsenal Football Club before the refinery consumed his attention. "I missed the boat," he said.