The latest African rich list sees the first ever appearance in a list of super wealthy individuals by Allan Gray, the founder of South Africa’s largest privately owned asset manager of the same name.
Publicity-shy Gray makes it to the number two slot with an estimated wealth of $8.5 billion (R85bn), which makes him significantly richer than the better known super wealthy names such as Nicky Oppenheimer, Johann Rupert and Christo Wiese.
The list, which was compiled by African Ventures, a recently established pan-African business magazine, is dominated by South Africans and Nigerians, who comprise five and four, respectively, of the top 10 wealthiest Africans.
According to African Ventures, there are at least 55 dollar billionaires in Africa. Previous estimates by Forbes have put the figure at between 16 and 25.
The Financial Times notes that the Forbes list of super-rich is not comparable with African Ventures’ list, but it is unclear what the difference in methodology is.
The richest person in Africa, according to African Ventures, is Nigerian Aliko Dangote, who made his estimated $20.2bn through manufacturing. African Ventures reports that Dangote, 56, started building his fortune 30 years ago by trading in commodities such as flour, sugar, rice and cement. Early this century, he moved into manufacturing and the Dangote Group is now the largest manufacturing conglomerate in west Africa with sugar refineries, salt processing facilities, a beverage plant and several cement factories across Africa.
