The net worth of 18 African billionaires combined is $84.9 billion, according to Forbes, the figure doubles the budget of Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria and surpasses the budgets of several of the 52 nations that make up the African continent multiple times.
BusinessDay carried out a survey to see the contribution of these African billionaires to the continent’s economy by their sectors through their commitment to the creation of job opportunities and poverty reduction.
Name: Othman Banjelloun & family #15
Industry: Finance and investments
Company: BMCE Bank of Africa
Networth: $1.5 Billion
Othman Banjelloun and family’s BMCE Bank of Africa, operates in 20 African countries. The bank is involved in the employment of more than 15,200 staff across the world.
The bank supports and finances entrepreneurs and small businesses promoting financial inclusion, through its CAP TPE 2020 programme. According to the organisation’s website, the bank is committed to fighting poverty on the continent.
The bank introduced financial and non-financial measures in support of micro-entrepreneurs, self-employed workers and small businesses, through its programme and foundation. Through its Medersat.com programme it has also targeted preschool and primary education, improving access to education in rural communities.
Name: Michiel Le Roux #14
Industry: Finance and investments
Company: Capitec Bank
Networth: $1.7 Billion
Capitec Bank is one of South Africa’s leading digital banks. Some 13,500 out of its 14,029 employees serve in South Africa, and all employees are entitled to top notch training and development opportunities.
According to data from UNESCO Institute for Statistics, as of 2019 there were 1.1 million out-of-school children in South Africa and a total illiterate population of about 2.2 million. For this reason, Michiel Le Roux invests in helping young South Africans to maximise their potentials by improving numeracy skills and financial literacy, through its Corporate Social Responsibility vehicle, Capitec Foundation.
Name: Koos Bekker #10
Industry: Media and entertainment
Company: NASPER
Networth: $2.7 Billion
Nasper operates in South Africa, with other major operations in Africa. As of December 2021, the company had 28,445 employees throughout its operation in the continent.
Nasper has contributed to relief works in South Africa, partnered with South African youths making waves in the tech, and also invested in companies which have high potential to thrive globally.
From 2018 to 2020, Nasper contributed a total of $300 million to show its commitment to South Africa’s tech ecosystem as an initiative to support tech start-ups and for the development of its existing technology businesses.
It also contributed $70 million to its commitment to South African e-commerce site Takealot.
Nasper’s Nigerian e-commerce startup, Konga was one of its earliest African investments, which was later sold in a distressed acquisition.
Name: Strive Masiyiwa #10
Industry: Telecoms
Company: Econet Wireless Zimbabwe
Networth: $2.7Billion
Econet Wireless operates in Zimbabwe. As of May 2022 it had employed a total of 2647 employees. Econnet is involved in the production of direct and indirect jobs. It implemented an Integrated Waste Management (IWM) programme which is crucial in ensuring the reduction of waste generation, and is also involved in solar projects. They have also partnered with Higher Life Foundation for medical issues.
Name: Patrice Motsepe #9
Industry: Metals and mining
Company: African Rainbow Minerals (ARM)
Networth: $3.1 Billion
ARM is headquartered in South Africa and operates in South Africa, and Malaysia. They are involved in the employment of over 20928 employees and contractors, through their various ARM operations. It has spent a total of R20 billion as payment to employees in terms of salaries, wages, benefits, out of which R1.1 billion has been spent on employee training. ARM pumped in about R747 million for community development projects and paid a total of R20.2 billion as taxes and royalties.
ARM spent over R58 billion on procurement, out of this more than 70 percent was spent on Africans, of which they also supported with mentoring, coaching and training, favourable payment terms, the provision of equipment and financial support.
Name: Naguib Sawiris #8
Industry: TELECOM
Company: Orascom Telecom
Networth: $3.4Billion
Orascom telecom operates in African countries Algeria, Tunisia, Zimbabwe and Egypt, with over 20,000 employees.
Orascom telecom through Orascom Investment holding (OIH) are involved in turning the spotlight on Egypt through tourism by leveraging on Egypts historical and archaeological sites. By providing first-class hospitality and visitor services, cutting-edge technologies, and top tier management along with operational models, OIH hopes to transform visitor experience at Egypt’s historical sites and cultural venues. This would further serve their greater goal of developing such a region and the urban landscape.
Name: Issad Rebrab & family #7
Industry: Food And Beverage
Company: Cevital food industry
Networth: $5.1 Billion
Cevital contributed to Algeria and Africa through its sugar and oil refineries, factories, packaging plant, manufacturing unit, conditioning unit, and liquid sugar unit, with the capacity to employ over 18000 people.
Cevital is the lead exporter of sugar in Africa, thus leading to the growth of Algeria GDP.
Cevital is greatly involved in creating employment opportunities, economic boom. Cevital, through their Meet The Farmers Conference (MTFC), have connected large scale commodity producers in Africa, exporters and agribusiness investors with off-takers in the GCC, using Dubai as a hub.
Name: Nassef Sawiris #4
Industry: Construction and engineering
Company: Orascom Construction
Networth: $8.6 Billion
Orascom construction operates in two African countries, Egypt and Algeria. They have significantly contributed to Egypt’s development through the establishment of two water treatment plants, the iconic Grand Egyptian Museum, Magdi Yacoub Global Heart Centre, and construction of major transport projects in Egypt (the monorail for Egypt’s capital, line 4 of Cairo Metro Line) amongst many others. The company is involved in the employment of approximately 53000 people worldwide
The rail system is stated to create over 1500 jobs in Egypt, reduce carbon emission by 70 percent, and transport 30 million people per year.
Name: Nicky Oppenheimer & family #3
Industry: Metals and mining
Company: De Beers diamond
Networth: $8.7 Billion
De Beers diamond mines in three African countries – South Africa, Botswana, Namibia – and Canada. According to its official Linkedin page, as of May 2022, it had a total of 3435 employees.
Through its mining establishment it has created jobs in terms of employment and business partnering of over 17535 people.
De Beers have majorly contributed to Africa through its GemFair pilot programme creating a secure and transparent route to market for ethically-sourced Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM) diamonds.
It has also provided ASM miners who meet their guidelines with equipment, created a ready made market for miners, and are also involved in the training of miners in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Ivory Coast.
As at 2013, De Beers had created and have been involved in skill training of a total of 35000 jobs and promoted economic development, job creation through skill development and mentoring and access to market programs in order to build successful businesses, and provided inclusive and high-quality education for children amongst many others.
Name: Johann Rupert #2
Industry: Fashion And Retail
Company: Compagnie Financière Richemont SA
Networth: $11 Billion
According to the Richemont group presentation released February 2022, they have a total of 810 Africans out of her 35000 employees.
It derived its least sales of 7 percent from the Middle East and Africa, same percentage as Japan.
Johann Rupert through the founding of Small Business Development Corporation (SBDC) has created over 600,000 jobs for the South African work-force and has helped SME start-up grow
Name: Aliko Dangote #1
Industry: Manufacturing
Company: Dangote Cement
Networth: $13.9 Billion
The manufacturing sector led by African billionaire, Aliko Dangote through his company Dangote cement operates in 17 countries have invested in creating job in Africa, through his employment of an average of 31,233 people since 2015 and patronage of local labour, suppliers, vendors and contractors as their way of building local capacity and content.
According to data from NGX, Dangote created 2,770 jobs from 2020 to 2021 and 7,378 jobs from 2015 to 2022.
Read also:Dangote Cement emerges best performing stock on NGX
However Dangote support for jobs (direct, indirect and induced) reduced by 31.7 percent from 54,005 in 2019 to 41,018 in 2020, although the number of countries in which jobs were supported increased by one.
Dangote spent ₦2,852 billion on community investments in 2020, as part of our corporate social responsibility, an increase of 157.4% from the 2019 total spending of ₦1,108 billion
