In this article, TRIBUNE ONLINE takes a look at the most enterprising individuals in Africa, according to the Forbes Daily billionaires ranking platform.
Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires rankings track the daily ups and downs of the world’s richest people. The wealth-tracking platform provides ongoing updates on the net worth and ranking of each individual confirmed by Forbes to be a billionaire. The value of individuals’ public holdings are updated every 5 minutes when respective stock markets are open (there will be a 15-minute delay for stock prices).
Below are the top 10 richest men in Africa 2024:
1. Johann Rupert & Family (South Africa)
The South African business mogul recently overtook Nigeria’s billionaire Aliko Dangote to become Africa’s richest man at the start of 2024. Rupert’s real-time net worth is &10 billion. He is the 202nd richest man in the world. He is the 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.
2. Aliko Dangote (Nigeria)
The Nigerian is currently ranked 2nd on Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires rankings, with a global ranking of 219th. Dangote’s net worth is estimated to be around $9.5 billion as at the time of filing this report. He is the founder of the continent’s largest cement company, Dangote Cement. 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 of development, Dangote’s fertilizer plant in Nigeria began operations in March 2022.
Dangote Refinery has been under construction since 2016 and is expected to be one of the world’s largest oil refineries once completed.
3. Nicky Oppenheimer & Family (South Africa)
Ranked 281st in the world, Nicky Oppenheimer is Africa’s third richest man on the billionaire list. 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. He boasts $8.3 billion net worth.
4. Nassef Sawiris (Egypt)
With a net worth of $7.2bn, the Egyptian is ranked fourth richest man in the continent. He is also ranked 352nd in the world. 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.
5. Nathan Kirsh (Swaziland)
Nathan Kirsh is Africa’s fifth richest man. Kirsh’s fortune comes from US-based Jetro Holdings, which owns restaurant supply stores Jetro Cash and Carry and Restaurant Depot. He owns 70% of the company, which supplies wholesale goods to bodegas, small stores, and restaurants in the United States.
Kirsh made his first fortune in his native Swaziland, where he launched a corn milling business in 1958. He is ranked 487th in the global ranking.
6. Abdulsamad Rabiu (Nigeria)
The Kano-born businessman and philanthropist is now the continent’s sixth richest man following the Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires rankings for 2024. With net worth of $5.7 billion, Rabiu is sitting on 494 in the global ranking. He 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 the 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.
7. Issad Rebrab & Family (Algeria)
The Algerian businessman 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. His current net worth is $4.6 billion, making him the world’s 635th richest man.
8. Mohamed Mansour (Egypt)
Mansour oversees family conglomerate Mansour Group, which was founded by his father Loutfy (d. 1976) in 1952 and has 60,000 employees. He established General Motors dealerships in Egypt in 1975, later becoming one of GM’s biggest distributors worldwide. With $3.6 billion net worth, the Egyptian billionaire is the world’s 848th richest man.
9. Naguib Sawiris (Egypt)
Like his brother, Naguib is also among Africa’s 10 ten richest men in 2024. He built a fortune in telecom, selling Orascom Telecom in 2011 to Russian telecom firm VimpelCom (now Veon) in a multibillion-dollar transaction. He is 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 the pan-European pay TV and video news network Euronews. His current net worth is pegged around $3.3 billion, making him the 915th richest man in the world.
10. Mike Adenuga (Nigeria)
Mike Adenuga is the third Nigerian on the billionaire list, with a net worth of $3.1 billion. He also doubles as the world’s 1007th richest man. 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.
- Additional details extracted from Forbes website
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