Africa’s top 10 wealthiest people are worth a combined estimate of US$67.8 billion in the past 12 months.
Forbes tracked the wealth of African billionaires who reside in Africa or have their primary business there, and the net worth was estimated using stock prices and currency exchange rates as of Friday 13 January 2023.
We begin with estimations of revenues or profits and apply current price-to-sale or price-to-earnings ratios for comparable public companies to value privately held enterprises. Within weeks or days following our measurement date, some list members become wealthy or worse.
Nigerian industrialist Aliko Dangote, whose fortune dropped US$400 million to US$13.5 billion, is the richest person for the 12th year in a row, and South African luxury goods magnate Johann Rupert held onto no. 2 for a second year, despite falling US$300 million to US$10.7 billion.
1. Aliko Dangote
Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest person, founded and chairs Dangote Cement, the continent’s largest cement producer.
He owns 85% of publicly-traded Dangote Cement through a holding company.
Dangote Cement has the capacity to produce 48.6 million metric tons annually and has operations in 10 countries across Africa.
After many years in development, Dangote’s fertilizer plant in Nigeria began operations in March 2022.
Dangote in his own words once said, “Nigeria is one of the best-kept secrets. A lot of foreigners are not investing because they’re waiting for the right time. There is no right time.”
Dangote Refinery has been under construction since 2016 and is expected to be one of the world’s largest oil refineries once complete.
2. Johann Rupert & family
Johann Rupert is chairman of Swiss luxury goods firm Compagnie Financiere Richemont.
The company is best known for the brands Cartier and Montblanc.
It was formed in 1998 through a spinoff of assets owned by Rembrandt Group Limited (now Remgro Limited), which his father Anton formed in the 1940s.
He owns 7% of diversified investment firm Remgro, which he chairs, as well as 26% of Reinet, an investment holding company based in Luxembourg.
Rupert has been a vocal opponent of plans to allow fracking in the Karoo, a region of South Africa where he owns land.
He’s Africa’s second billionaires (2023) and ranks 230 in the word Billionaires (2022).
3. Nicky Oppenheimer & family
Nicky Oppenheimer, heir to the DeBeers diamond fortune, sold his 40% of the firm to mining group Anglo American for $5.1 billion in cash in 2012.
He was the third generation of his family to run DeBeers, and took the company private in 2001.
For 85 years until 2012, the Oppenheimer family occupied a controlling spot in the world’s diamond trade.
In 2014, Oppenheimer started Fireblade Aviation in Johannesburg, which operates chartered flights.
He owns at least 720 square miles of conservation land across South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique.
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Oppenheimer donated more than $110 million to South African small businesses.
4. Abdulsamad Rabiu
Abdulsamad Rabiu is the founder of BUA Group, a Nigerian conglomerate active in cement production, sugar refining and real estate.
In early January 2020, Rabiu merged his privately-owned Obu Cement company with listed firm Cement Co. of Northern Nigeria, which he controlled.
The combined firm, called BUA Cement Plc, trades on the Nigerian stock exchange; Rabiu owns 98.2% of it.
Rabiu, the son of a businessman, inherited land from his father.
He set up his own business in 1988 importing iron, steel and chemicals.
5. Nassef Sawiris
Nassef Sawiris is an investor and a scion of Egypt’s wealthiest family. His most valuable asset is a nearly 6% stake in sportswear maker Adidas.
In December 2020, he acquired a 5% stake in New York-listed firm Madison Square Garden Sports, owner of the NBA Knicks and the NHL Rangers teams.
He runs OCI, one of the world’s largest nitrogen fertilizer producers, with plants in Texas and Iowa; it trades on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange.
Orascom Construction, an engineering and building firm, trades on the Cairo exchange and Nasdaq Dubai.
His holdings include stakes in cement giant Lafarge Holcim and Adidas; he sits on the supervisory board of Adidas.
Nassef Sawiris teamed up with Fortress Investment Group’s Wes Edens to purchase the Premier League’s Aston Villa Football Club.
6. Mike Adenuga
Adenuga, Nigeria’s second richest man, built his fortune in telecom and oil production.
His mobile phone network, Globacom, is the third largest operator in Nigeria, with 55 million subscribers.
His oil exploration outfit, Conoil Producing, operates 6 oil blocks in the Niger Delta. Adenuga got an MBA at Pace University in New York, supporting himself as a student by working as a taxi driver.
He made his first million at age 26 selling lace and distributing soft drinks.
7. Issad Rebrab & family
Rebrab founded Cevital and served as its CEO for more than 50 years; He named his son, Malik, CEO in July 2022.
Cevital, Algeria’s biggest privately-held company, owns one of the largest sugar refineries in the world, with the capacity to produce 2 million tons a year.
Cevital owns European companies, including French home appliances maker Groupe Brandt, an Italian steel mill and a German water purification company.
After serving 8 months in jail on charges of corruption, Rebrab was released on January 1, 2020. He denies any wrongdoing.
Rebrab is the son of militants who fought for Algeria’s independence from France.
8. Naguib Sawiris
Naguib Sawiris is a scion of Egypt’s wealthiest family. His brother Nassef is also a billionaire.
He built a fortune in telecom, selling Orascom Telecom in 2011 to Russian telecom firm VimpelCom (now Veon) in a multibillion-dollar transaction.
He’s chairman of Orascom TMT Investments, which has stakes in an asset manager in Egypt and Italian internet company Italiaonline, among others.
Through his Media Globe Holdings, Sawiris owns 88% of pan-European pay TV and video news network Euronews.
He also developed a luxury resort called Silversands on the Caribbean island of Grenada.
Sawiris helped found The Free Egyptians, a liberal political party, at the onset of Egypt’s uprisings in 2011.
9. Patrice Motsepe
Patrice Motsepe, the founder and chairman of African Rainbow Minerals, became a billionaire in 2008 – the first black African on the Forbes list.
In 2016, he launched a private equity firm, African Rainbow Capital, focused on investing in Africa.
Motsepe also has a stake in Sanlam, a listed financial services firm, and is the president and owner of the Mamelodi Sundowns Football Club.
In March 2021, Motsepe was elected president of the Confederation of African Football, the sport’s governing body on the continent.
In 1994, he became the first black partner at law firm Bowman Gilfillan in Johannesburg, and then started a mining services contracting business.
In 1997, he bought low-producing gold mine shafts and later turned them profitable.
In 2013, the mining magnate was the first African to sign Bill Gates’ and Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge, promising to give at least half his fortune to charity.
In 2013, the mining magnate was the first African to sign Bill Gates’ and Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge, promising to give at least half his fortune to charity.
Motsepe benefited from South Africa’s Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) laws, mandating that companies be at least 26% black-owned to get a government mining license.
10. Mohamed Mansour
Mohamed Mansour oversees family conglomerate Mansour Group, which was founded by his father Loutfy (d. 1976) in 1952 and has 60,000 employees.
Mansour established General Motors dealerships in Egypt in 1975, later becoming one of GM’s biggest distributors worldwide.
Mansour Group also has exclusive distribution rights for Caterpillar equipment in Egypt and seven other African countries.
Mansour, who has both Egyptian and U.K. citizenship, served as Egypt’s minister of transportation from 2006 to 2009 under the Hosni Mubarak regime.
His brothers Yasseen and Youssef, who share ownership in the family group, are also billionaires; his son Loutfy heads private equity arm Man Capital.
