Africa Finance Corporation takes equity in Aliko Dangote's refinery after recovering its $300 million loan

Africa Finance Corporation is no longer just a lender to Aliko Dangote. The Lagos-based infrastructure financier has taken an equity stake in Dangote Petroleum Refinery, joining the company's $2.5 billion private placement only months after collecting full repayment of a $300 million loan it used to help build the complex in the first place.

The corporation said it led a group of strategic investors into the placement, the refinery's first equity raise to bring in shareholders from outside its founding ownership. AFC did not reveal how much it committed, how many shares it received or the size of the resulting stake, and the full $2.5 billion was raised from a wider pool of backers rather than the corporation alone.

The move marks a shift in how AFC is exposed to the refinery. The institution first supported the project with debt and working-capital financing, including a $300 million senior loan that formed part of roughly $5.6 billion in facilities assembled from development banks, commercial lenders and export credit agencies. That loan, which helped fund construction of the 650,000-barrel-per-day plant and its adjoining fertilizer complex in the Lekki Free Zone, has now been repaid in full, and AFC has recycled its conviction into equity.

Demand for the placement was heavy. The raise drew international and African institutional investors, sovereign-linked funds, development finance institutions and strategic partners, and orders reached 3.7 times the initial offer size, according to the corporation. Dangote said the proceeds would support expansion, strengthen the refinery's capital structure and broaden an investor base he wants to institutionalize ahead of a landmark public listing.

The refinery needs the capital. Dangote has announced plans to more than double capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day by 2028, a target that would make the roughly $20 billion Lagos complex the largest of its kind in the world. Fresh equity gives the company a way to fund that push without leaning entirely on new borrowing or its own cash flow.

The investment also deepens a widening relationship. AFC extended a $600 million facility in June to Dangote's fertilizer arm, part of a $7 billion plan to lift urea output in Nigeria and build a plant in Ethiopia. Its president, Samaila Zubairu, called the refinery one of the most consequential industrial assets on the continent, and the corporation is now backing it as both creditor and shareholder.