Aliko Dangote of Nigeria is the continent’s richest individual for more than the tenth year in a row, with a net worth of $11.3 billion, up to $2 billion from last year’s list thanks to a nearly 30% increase in the share price of Dangote Cement, by far his most important commodity.
Nassef Sawiris of Egypt is the second richest person, with a roughly 6% stake in sportswear company Adidas as his most valuable wealth.
Number three is the South African Nicky Oppenheimer, who inherited an interest in the diamond company DeBeers and ran it until 2012 when he sold his family’s 40% stake in DeBeers to a mining giant AngloAmerican for $5.1 billion.
The richest people in Africa, like elsewhere in the world, have fared well through the pandemic.
Per-Anders Pettersson/ Getty Images, Wei Leng Tay/Bloomberg, Stephen Yang/Bloomberg
Abdulsamad Rabiu, another Nigerian cement tycoon, has made the most gains this year. Shares of his BUA Cement PLC, which went public on the Nigerian Stock Exchange in January 2020, have more than doubled in value over the last year. Rabiu’s fortune increased by an incredible 77 percent, to $5.5 billion.
For the fourth year in a row, Jeff Bezos is the world’s richest man, with a net worth of $177 billion, up to $64 billion from a year earlier due to rising Amazon stock prices.
Africa’s 18 billionaires come from seven different countries. South Africa and Egypt each have five billionaires, with Nigeria and Morocco each having three.
They are worth $73.8 billion in total, significantly more than the $73.4 billion total worth of the 20 billionaires on Africa’s wealthiest individuals list from last year.
On Forbes’ 35th annual ranking of the world’s richest people, the number of billionaires has risen to an all-time high of 2,755, up 660 from a year earlier. They are worth $13.1 trillion in total, up from $8 trillion in 2020.
