Africa’s 5 Biggest IPOs Ever, Ranked

Ranking Africa’s Biggest IPOs by Capital Raised

When people ask which IPO was Africa’s biggest ever, the answer depends on how you measure it — capital raised, market value at listing, or exchange impact all tell different stories. Here’s a ranking based on gross capital raised, using verifiable, reported figures.

1. Safaricom (Kenya, 2008): The Kenyan government sold a 25% stake in the mobile operator on the Nairobi Securities Exchange, raising roughly $800 million (about 50 billion Kenyan shillings), in an offer that was massively oversubscribed by local and international investors. It remains one of the most-cited benchmarks for a large, successful African IPO.

2. Airtel Africa (2019): Airtel Africa listed simultaneously on the London Stock Exchange and the Nigerian Exchange in July 2019, raising approximately $750 million through a book-building process at a listing valuation of roughly $3.93 billion.

3. Vodacom Tanzania (2017): Vodacom’s Tanzanian unit raised about $213 million (476 billion Tanzanian shillings) on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange, as part of a government mandate requiring telecoms operators to list locally.

4. Jumia (2019): Though listed on the NYSE rather than an African exchange, Jumia — often called the first African tech “unicorn” — raised around $196–225 million in its IPO, notable as the first major African-founded internet company to go public in the US.

5. MTN Nigeria (2019): A special case — MTN Nigeria’s NGX debut used a “listing by introduction” rather than a capital-raising IPO, meaning no new money was raised at listing, but it added roughly ₦1.8 trillion to the exchange’s market capitalization on day one, becoming NGX’s second-largest listed company at the time.

Where Dangote’s Refinery IPO Could Rank

If Dangote Petroleum Refinery’s IPO proceeds at anything close to the reported target — commonly cited valuation estimates of $39–50 billion, with reports of up to 10% of the company being offered — it would likely raise well over $1 billion, which would put it ahead of every deal on this list by capital raised, and make it Africa’s largest IPO on record. That outcome depends entirely on the final, SEC-approved terms, which are not public as of this writing.

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