African Wealth Briefing — Tues., July 28, 2026

Good evening from Billionaires.Africa. Here's the catch-up on what we've published since Friday's edition.

Three threads ran through the long weekend. Access — African manufacturers written into the world's biggest medicines from the start. Opacity — ownership dissolving into structures no one can trace. And accountability — fortunes built on hard assets meeting the bill for how they were built. Today's three premium briefings take one thread each.

Southern Africa — access, and an ending. Stephen Saad's Aspen secured royalty-free rights to Merck's once-monthly HIV pill, one of only seven manufacturers licensed to make it across 129 countries — a landmark for African pharma. (Today's Investor Memo explains why the licence matters more than the Ozempic race.) In a quieter but symbolic close, Ivan Saltzman quit the Dis-Chem board with immediate effect, ending the founding family's 48-year presence barely three weeks after taking the seat he retired into. And Mozambique's Salimo Abdula urged African companies to innovate and expand abroad.

East Africa — the vanishing owner. In one of the weekend's most striking stories, Ronald Karauri and Robert Macharia lost control of SportPesa: a UAE-registered firm with no traceable owner now holds 54% of the operator, cutting the two men who built the structure below 4% between them. (Today's Deep-Dive takes the ownership maze apart.) Meanwhile Mauritius's Arnaud Lagesse pushed IBL deeper into African consumer markets as group revenue topped $2 billion, with East Africa now supplying 37% of it.

West & Central Africa — a fortune, a listing and a trial. France's Perrodo family, worth $11.4 billion on Africa's abandoned oil wells, heads for a Paris trial over alleged pollution in the DRC. (Today's Inside Story tells how the model was built — and what it may cost.) Aliko Dangote pitched a fuel-storage terminal in Cameroon to reach landlocked Chad and the Central African Republic, while his daughter Mariya Dangote explained why Dangote Cement chose London over Dubai for its secondary listing. Abdul Samad Rabiu's BUA Cement lifted half-year profit 80% to $237 million. Femi Otedola's fortune has grown $400 million this year on a single bank stock, taking him to about $1.7 billion. France is courting Mike Adenuga to fund an Institut Français in Abuja, and Ghana's Catherine Krobo Edusei sold control of Eden Tree after 29 years.

The takeaway. The weekend's best stories were all about who really holds the value. Aspen was chosen to hold access to a medicine; SportPesa's founders discovered they no longer hold their own company; and the Perrodos are being asked, in court, to hold responsibility for what their fortune was built on. Ownership, it turns out, is never quite as settled as a balance sheet makes it look.

On the site

• Stephen Saad's Aspen secures royalty-free rights to Merck's once-monthly HIV pill
• Kenyan tycoons Ronald Karauri and Robert Macharia lose SportPesa control to anonymous UAE firm
• France's billionaire Perrodo family built an $11.4 billion fortune on Africa's abandoned oil wells
• Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote pitches Cameroon fuel terminal to reach landlocked Central Africa
• Mauritian tycoon Arnaud Lagesse bets on African consumers as IBL revenue tops $2 billion
• Nigerian billionaire Abdul Samad Rabiu's BUA Cement lifts half-year profit 80% to $237 million
• South African billionaire Ivan Saltzman quits Dis-Chem board, ending the founding family's 48-year presence
• Mozambican tycoon Salimo Abdula urges African companies to innovate and expand abroad
• Swiss billionaire Thomas Flohr's VistaJet takes eighth Global 8000 as Africa to Asia flying surges
• Mariya Dangote explains why Dangote Cement chose London for secondary listing
• Nigerian billionaire Femi Otedola's fortune has grown $400 million this year on a single bank stock
• France looks to Nigerian billionaire Mike Adenuga to fund its Abuja cultural institute
• Ghanaian food entrepreneur Catherine Krobo Edusei sells control of Eden Tree after 29 years

Behind the paywall — for paid members

Today's premium briefings:

• Elite · Investor Memo — The Molecule and the Map. Merck handed Aspen a once-monthly HIV pill for 129 countries, royalty-free and years before approval. Why the licence — not the Ozempic race — is where Aspen's real value is accumulating. In Investor Memo.
• Executive · Deep-Dive Report — Who Owns the House. SportPesa's founders built a maze of holding companies to control Africa's biggest betting brand — and an untraceable UAE firm just used that same maze to take it. A study in the limits of corporate opacity. In Deep-Dive Report.
• Insider · The Inside Story — The Wells Others Left. The Perrodo family built $11.4 billion buying the African oil fields the majors abandoned. Now a Paris court will hear what the model cost. In The Inside Story.

Recently published:

• Wealth Intelligence: The Discipline of No (Johann Rupert / Reinet)
• Deep-Dive Report: Both Sides of the Pump (Aziz Akhannouch)
• The Inside Story: The Six-Month Window (Stephen Saad / Aspen)

→ Executive ($25/mo): Daily newsletter + Deep-Dive Reports · → Elite ($75/mo): Everything above + Investor Memos + Wealth Intelligence + Quarterly Analyst Briefings. Subscribe

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