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Paul Obambi bought the iron-ore project a South African major had given up on, then spent a decade chasing the one thing that would make it worth anything: a 450-kilometre railway to the ocean.
Patrice Motsepe's African Rainbow Minerals is spending about $925 million to reopen a platinum mine it shut two years ago — a bet that the whole sector's retreat went too far. Inside a contrarian wager, and why the timing, not the thesis, is what's on trial.
Angola raised $321 million floating 15% of Unitel — the mobile operator it took from Isabel dos Santos four years ago. The largest IPO in the nation's history is really a test of a much bigger question.
In the early 1990s a French engineer bought an ageing Gabonese oil field that Amoco had written off. That single unwanted reservoir became the model for an $11.4 billion fortune built almost entirely on the barrels the majors abandoned across Africa.
Two Kenyan businessmen spent six years and a maze of holding companies fighting to control SportPesa. This week, filings showed an untraceable firm in the United Arab Emirates now holds 54% of the operator.
Merck handed Aspen the right to make a once-monthly HIV pill across 129 countries. It is the second pharma prize Africa's largest drugmaker has landed this month.
Stephen Saad said you have to be within six months of the first launch to be part of market formation. This week Africa's largest drugmaker won approval to sell a generic Ozempic in Canada — and then discovered it has no ingredient to make it with.
Johann Rupert spent months examining a "potentially very significant" investment — and walked away. Reinet is now buying back up to €500 million of its own shares instead, sitting on the largest cash pile in its history.
In 1989 a Cameroonian banker submitted a doctoral thesis in Bordeaux arguing that Africa's informal economy was not a failure but a financial revolution waiting for its institution. He then spent 36 years building the institution. Last week it opened in one of the least-banked countries on earth.
A record $363 million dividend, a 95% jump in profit, and a bet to become Nigeria's largest food manufacturer by next year. Inside Abdul Samad Rabiu's plan to win the staple-food market on sheer volume.
Aliko Dangote has raised about $2.5 billion privately at a ~$40 billion valuation, days before floating the refinery on the Nigerian Exchange. Last week we called the IPO the hinge of his whole network. This is the hinge turning.
A hotel room in South Africa, three months long, where a banker watched his wife die of cancer. Out of it came Malawi's only cancer hospital — and the most revealing chapter in the complicated story of the country's first billionaire, Thom Mpinganjira.
A European heatwave, an AfCFTA loophole and a $1 billion family conglomerate: how Abderrahmane Benhamadi's Condor is trying to turn Algeria into an exporter of something other than oil and gas.
Femi Otedola is a Forbes-listed billionaire and the author of one of the boldest bets in Nigerian banking. Yesterday his First HoldCo stake hit a record $530 million. Inside the holdings, the cash flows and the pivot behind the number.
Nassef Sawiris has crossed 55% of OCI Global and won his board's backing for a €4.10 all-cash offer. Inside the take-private — and the Orascom question riding alongside it.
He is worth close to $9 billion, yet absent from the Forbes list. His flagship Moroccan refinery lies in ruins. And he is quietly pouring capital back into Ethiopia. The paradox of Mohammed Al-Amoudi.