Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote plans to list 10% of his Ethiopian fertiliser business

Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote plans to sell at least 10% of his fertiliser venture in Ethiopia to local investors through the country's young stock exchange, once the plant is up and running.

"We need to sell minimum at least 10 percent of it at this Ethiopian Stock Exchange," Dangote said on Thursday in Addis Ababa, where he was promoting the initial public offering of his oil refinery in Nigeria.

Dangote, Africa's richest person, said he would discuss the plan with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed but would go ahead regardless. "Even if he doesn't agree, we will take our own 10 percent and sell," he said.

He did not give a date, a price or the number of shares to be offered, and said the sale would come after the plant's production stabilizes.

The Gode plant

The business is a urea fertiliser complex under construction at Gode, in Ethiopia's Somali region, designed to produce 3 million tonnes a year. Dangote Group owns 60% of the project and Ethiopian Investment Holdings, the government's sovereign investment arm, holds 40%, under a shareholders' agreement signed in August 2025.

Dangote and Abiy launched construction in October 2025. The project was first budgeted at $2.5 billion, and its committed cost has since risen above $4 billion as the scope grew to include a gas pipeline, a power plant, a packaging plant and a blending facility. The plant is due to be completed within 40 months of the start of work, which points to 2029.

It will run on natural gas piped from the Calub and Hilala fields in the Ogaden basin, reserves that have sat largely undeveloped for decades. Ethiopia imports almost all of its fertiliser, and the government expects the plant to cut that bill and save scarce foreign currency. Dangote has said Ethiopia could also supply fertiliser to its neighbors in East Africa.

He told investors in Addis Ababa that the venture could become Ethiopia's second most valuable company. "It cannot be as much as Ethiopian Airlines," he said, referring to the state-owned carrier.

"The investment in Ethiopia has no limit," Dangote said. "Whatever we make here, we will bring more and more here."

A small exchange

The listing would give the Ethiopian Securities Exchange one of its biggest names. The bourse started trading in January 2025, the first share market in Ethiopia since the 1970s, and has only a handful of listed companies. State-owned Ethio Telecom has sold 10% of its shares to the public, and Abay Bank became the exchange's fifth listed company in June. The exchange is aiming for 50 listings by 2030.

Ahmed Shide, speaker of Ethiopia's parliament and a former finance minister, called the Dangote partnership a model of "African enterprises financed by Africans."

Bigger fertiliser plans

Dangote wants to quadruple the group's fertiliser capacity to 12 million tonnes a year by adding a second 3 million-tonne line at Gode and another 6 million tonnes in Nigeria, where Dangote Fertiliser already runs a 3 million-tonne urea plant in Lagos. He has said he aims to list Dangote Fertiliser in Nigeria next year.

The Addis Ababa stop was part of the roadshow for Dangote Petroleum Refinery's IPO in Nigeria, the largest in the country's history. The refinery is selling 4.1 billion shares at ₦525 each to raise about $1.6 billion, and the offer has been extended to Oct. 27 to give investors in other African countries more time. In Ethiopia, the shares are being offered to qualified investors through depository receipts.

Dangote built his fortune in cement, sugar and flour before moving into fertiliser and oil refining. He holds about 87% of the refinery, which began processing crude in 2024.