In the new year, as Africa continues to grow its digital economy and looks to fully embrace AI, billionaires will play an increasingly important role in ensuring this transformation, as their resources and networks can help African entrepreneurs scale up creative solutions that solve local problems ranging from healthcare to education and beyond.
The Forbes Billionaires Index revealed the 10 richest people in Africa at the start of 2025, with three Egyptians competing with billionaires in Nigeria and South Africa, and the rankings were as follows:
1- Aliko Dangote
In first place comes billionaire Aliko Dangote, as the richest man in Africa with a fortune estimated at $11.5 billion.
Dangote founded and chairs the board of directors of Dangote Cement, the largest cement producer on the continent, owning 85 percent of the publicly listed cement company through a holding company.
Dangote Cement has a capacity to produce 48.6 million metric tons per year and has operations in 10 countries across Africa. After many years of development, Dangote’s fertilizer plant in Nigeria began operations in March 2022. Construction of the Dangote Refinery began in 2016, with refining operations expected to begin in 2024.
2- Johan Rupert
In second place is South African billionaire Johan Rupert, who is the chairman of Swiss luxury goods company Compagnie Financiere Richemont.
His company is known for its powerful brands, such as Cartier and Montblanc. The company was formed in 1998 by separating assets owned by Rembrandt Group Limited, which was founded by his father Anton in the 1940s.
Robert owns 7 percent of the diversified investment company Remgro, which he chairs, and 27 percent of Reinet, a Luxembourg-based investment holding company.
Robert has been an outspoken opponent of plans to allow oil exploration in the Karoo, a region of South Africa where he owns land.
3- Nicky Oppenheimer
South African billionaire Nicky Oppenheimer is the third-richest person in the world with a fortune of $9.5 billion. He is the heir to the De Beers diamond fortune, including a 40 percent stake in his Anglo American mining company for $5.1 billion in cash in 2012.
He was the third generation of his family to run De Beers, and took the company private in 2001. For 85 years, until 2012, the Oppenheimer family held a dominant position in the global diamond trade.
In 2014, Oppenheimer founded Fireblade Aviation in Johannesburg, which operates charter flights, and owns at least 720 square miles of protected land across South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
4- Nassef Sawiris
In fourth place is Egyptian billionaire Nassef Sawiris, an investor and scion of Egypt’s richest family, the Sawiris family, with a fortune of $7.7 billion.
In December 2020, he acquired a 5 percent stake in New York-listed Madison Square Garden Sports, which owns the NBA Knicks and NHL Rangers.
He runs OCI, one of the world’s largest nitrogen fertilizer producers, with plants in Texas and Iowa, and whose shares are traded on Euronext Amsterdam, as well as Orascom Construction, an engineering and construction company, which is traded on the Cairo and Nasdaq Dubai stock exchanges.
His holdings include a stake of around 6 percent in German sportswear giant Adidas, and he teamed up with businessman Wes Edens of Fortress Investment Group to buy English Premier League football club Aston Villa.
5- Nathan Kirsch
Eswatini billionaire Nathan Kirsch is worth an estimated $7.3 billion, making him the fifth richest person in Africa.
The bulk of Kirsch’s wealth comes from US-based Jetro Holdings, which owns the Jetro Cash and Carry and Restaurant Depot food supply stores.
Kirsch owns 70 percent of the company, which supplies wholesale goods to grocery stores, convenience stores and restaurants in the United States. He made his first fortune in his native Swaziland, where he started a corn milling business in 1958. He expanded into wholesale food distribution in apartheid South Africa, then moved into supermarkets and commercial real estate development.
6- Mike Adenuga
Nigerian billionaire Mike Adenuga, worth $6.8 billion, is the second-richest man in Nigeria. He built his fortune in the telecommunications and oil sectors.
He owns a mobile phone network, Globacom, the second-largest mobile phone operator in Nigeria, with more than 60 million subscribers, while his oil exploration company, Conoil Producing, operates six oil fields in the Niger Delta.
Globacom also built Glo-1, a 6,100-mile submarine internet cable to the UK via Ghana and Portugal, and owns 74 percent of publicly traded petrol company Conoil and just under 6 percent of publicly traded Nigerian bank Sterling Financial Holdings.
7- Abdul Samad Rabiu
Billionaire Abdul Samad Rabiu is one of the richest people in Africa and the third richest person in Nigeria with a fortune estimated at $6.8 billion. He founded his own company in 1988 to import iron, steel and chemicals.
Abdul Samad Rabiu is the founder of the BUA Group, a Nigerian group that works in cement production, sugar refining and real estate. In early January 2020, Rabiu merged his own company, Obu Cement, with the northern Nigerian-listed Cement Co, which he controlled.
The merged company, BUA Cement Plc, is traded on the Nigerian Stock Exchange; he owns 98.2 percent of it, and he also owns 95 percent of BUA Foods, a food company listed on the stock exchange.
8- Naguib Sawiris
In eighth place among the 10 richest people in Africa is the Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris, with a fortune estimated at $3.8 billion.
Naguib Sawiris is a descendant of the richest family in Egypt, the "Sawiris family", and his brother Nassef is one of the richest people in Africa. Naguib built his fortune in the field of communications, after selling "Orascom Telecom" in 2011 to the Russian telecommunications company "VimpelCom" (now Veon) in a multi-billion dollar deal.
He is the chairman of the board of directors of "Orascom TMT" Investments, which owns stakes in an asset management company in Egypt and the Italian Internet company "Italia Online", among others. He also developed a luxury resort called "Silver Sands" on the island of Grenada in the Caribbean.
9- Mohamed Mansour
Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Mansour has a fortune of $3.3 billion, making him the ninth richest person in Africa. He oversees the Mansour family group of companies, which was founded by his father Lotfy in 1952 and employs 60,000 people.
Mansour founded the General Motors Egypt agencies in 1975, which later became one of the largest General Motors distributors in the world. The Mansour Group also has exclusive distribution rights for Caterpillar equipment in Egypt and seven other African countries.
Mansour, who holds Egyptian and British citizenship, served as Minister of Transport in Egypt from 2006 to 2009 during the Hosni Mubarak regime. His brothers Yassin and Youssef, who co-own the family group, are also billionaires, while his son Lotfy heads the private investment arm of Man Capital.
10- Koos Baker
In tenth place is South African billionaire Koos Baker, with a fortune estimated at $2.9 billion, who succeeded in transforming the South African newspaper publisher Naspers into an investor in e-commerce and a force in the field of cable television.
Baker led Naspers to pay $34 million to buy a third of the Chinese internet company Tencent Holdings in 2001, which may be the greatest investment investment ever, and in 2019, Naspers put some assets in two publicly listed companies, the entertainment company MultiChoice Group and Prosus, which contains the Tencent stake.
However, Naspers sold its stake in Tencent over the years and now owns 25 percent of it. Baker, who retired as CEO of Naspers in March 2014, returned to the position of chairman of the board in April 2015.
ILLUSTRATION BY STEPHANIE CUI FOR FORBES; PHOTO BY ALBERTO BERNASCONI/BLOOMBERG; NEVILLE WILLIAMS/ASTON VILLA/GETTY; MICHAEL PRINCE FOR FORBES
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