Dangote Cement is targeting a September London Stock Exchange listing, reviving a plan that stalled eight years ago and setting up what could be the most consequential year in the history of the conglomerate’s relationship with global capital markets. The cement giant intends to sell about 10% of its shares to outside investors as part of the secondary listing in the United Kingdom.
This marks a major comeback. Dangote first attempted to list the cement business in London in 2018, appointing prominent independent directors to the board at the time including barrister Cherie Blair and former Xstrata chief executive Mick Davis. Stringent regulatory requirements and the demands of constructing the $20 billion Dangote Petroleum Refinery in Lekki, Lagos, eventually pulled attention away from the listing process.
Now conditions have shifted. The FCA has been overhauling its listing rules since 2024 in an effort to reverse years of decline in London’s attractiveness as a venue for large equity offerings.CEO Aliko Dangote told the Financial Times that Dangote Cement is targeting a London listing by September with JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Standard Bank already appointed as advisers.
The numbers are impressive. The company reported a net profit of $732 million for the 2025 financial year, up 102% year on year, on revenues of $3.12 billion. In the first quarter of 2026, pre-tax profit rose a further 35%, partly driven by a 71.6% surge in clinker exports from Nigeria. The stock has gained more than 70 percent on the NGX this year. Its current market capitalization on the Lagos exchange stands at approximately $13 billion.
Dangote Cement, which operates across 11 African countries with installed capacity of 55 million metric tonnes per year and is Africa’s largest cement producer by output, would represent exactly the kind of large-capitalization African issuer the exchange has been trying to attract.
Beyond cement, Dangote’s ambitions are expanding rapidly. The cement giant intends to sell about 10% of its shares to outside investors as part of the secondary listing, while plans are also underway to scale up refinery output from 650,000 barrels per day to 1.4 million barrels per day, a move that could make it the largest refinery globally upon completion.
