Dangote, African bourses explore wider access for $1.6bn refinery IPO

By Yinka Kolawole, with agency report Dangote Group has held talks with African stock exchanges to broaden access to the $1.6 billion initial public offering (IPO) of its refinery beyond Nigeria, although differences in regulatory requirements across markets have complicated the process. Edoh Kossi Amenounve, Chief Executive Officer of the Abidjan-based Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières (BRVM), disclosed this in an interview with Reuters on the sidelines of the Africa Financial Summit in Luanda.

Amenounve said discussions began in April at the invitation of Dangote Group, focusing on how stock exchanges across the continent could participate in the IPO despite differences in listing regulations. “It was not easy to have a kind of consensus on how the IPO can be conducted in all these different markets,” he said. He explained that one option under consideration was the use of Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs), which would allow securities representing Dangote refinery shares to be listed on other African exchanges.

He cited similar arrangements in Kenya and Botswana. The refinery’s IPO, which closed on October 28, attracted subscription demand of about N6.4 trillion ($4.77 billion) from Nigerian retail and institutional investors, approximately three times the value of shares offered, according to people familiar with the transaction who spoke to Reuters. The shares are expected to be listed on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) later in November.

Amenounve noted that companies seeking listings across multiple African markets currently have to obtain separate approvals from the securities regulators in each jurisdiction, a process he said could be eased through regulatory harmonisation and mutual recognition. “If you want to ease this kind of process, maybe it is time to think about harmonisation and mutual recognition,” he said.

He added that the technological infrastructure for cross-border securities trading was already available through the African Exchanges Linkage Project (AELP), but regulatory barriers continued to impede its full implementation. Meanwhile, Amenounve disclosed that BRVM had postponed the launch of West Africa’s first derivatives market to 2027 due to outstanding regulatory and technological requirements.

Initial products are expected to include forward contracts on market indices and selected stocks. “The future of the continent is also in mining, agriculture, industrialisation, energy,” he said.