Forbes in its recently released annual exclusive billionaire ranking has only four Nigerians in the fold of world richest individuals. The Nigerians who expectedly made the highly coveted list are Aliko Dangote, Mike Adenuga, AbdulSamad Rabiu and Folorunsho Alakija.
In the newest list of world billionaires, Dangote, President of Dangote Group retained his spot as the World’s richest black person with a fortune of $10.1 billion while Mike Adenuga, Chairman of Globacom came in as second in Nigeria and third in Africa with a fortune of $7.7billion. Rabiu leapt up the ladder with a net worth of $3.1 billion and moves up to eighth in the rankings and moves up to the eighth position in Africa while Alakija of Famfa Oil completes the list of Forbes billionaires from Nigeria with a fortune of $1 billion to complete Africa’s top 20 billionaires.
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Of all the four Nigerians on this year’s Forbes list, only Rabiu saw an increase in his fortunes from what was announced the previous year.
Rabiu had, early in January 2020, pulled off a public listing that seemed to defy logic when his BUA Group merged its privately owned Obu Cement— valued at just under $600 million a year ago— with the publicly traded Cement Company of Northern Nigeria Plc (CCNN), which as of late December 2019 had a market capitalization of about $600 million and thus create Nigeria’s second largest cement producer.
Through the magic of the markets, the combined entity, BUA Cement Plc, which listed on the Nigeria Stock Exchange on January 8, 2020, is worth nearly three times what the two companies were worth before the merger. The tycoon, sources said, owns 98 per cent of the new company, despite the fact that the Nigerian Stock Exchange requires 20 per cent of a company’s shares be floated to the public. The merger and subsequent new listing on Lagos bourse are behind how Rabiu emerged this year’s second-biggest gainer.
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Rabiu, the unassuming business tycoon, is full of life with a keen ear and a great business story. He is working so hard to close in on his city man. Aside Cement, which has catapulted the two Kano business magnates into Africa’s richest, Rabiu, like Dangote, has stakes in a wide range of other business interests including manufacturing, real estate, haulage, oil & gas, port concessions and shipping.
There are even silent whispers that Rabiu is considering owning his own refinery just as his kinsman in not too distant future. In all these, Rabiu, who would be 60 later on August 4, once dismissed talks of any competition with Dangote, pointing out that their mutual interests in certain sectors derive from the inclinations of the patriarchs of their families.
Besides his assets in the BUA Group, Rabiu owns property in Britain worth $62 million, and in South Africa, worth $19 million. Among his properties is a house in Gloucester Square in London worth nearly $16 million and a penthouse at The One & Only Hotel, in Cape Town, worth $12.6 million. Rabiu’s taste for good living is plain to see; he has bought homes from Eaton Square to Avenue Road, also known as Millionaires’ Row. Aside his magnificent home in Kano, the publicity-shy billionaire lives in a stylish humongous mansion in Lagos’ Banana Island, one of the most expensive and exclusive places to live in Nigeria.
