As expected, Dangote came in at number one with a net worth of $13.5 billion, with other expected entrants such as Johan Rupert and Family and Nicky Oppenheimer and Family at $10.7 billion and $8.4 billion respectively.
Alike Dangote’s fortune, Africa’s richest man for the 12th year in a row, dropped by $400 million to $13.5 billion. South Africa’s Johan Rupert is No. 11 with $10.7 billion in 2022. 2 remained, as shares of Richemont, the financier of his company, Cartier watches and Montblanc pens, did not retrace much of last year’s losses. South African Nicky Oppenheimer, who headed diamond mining giant DeBeers until it was sold to mining conglomerate Anglo American a decade ago, is third, worth an estimated $8.4 billion.
According to the publication, Africa’s richest people have lost a total of $3.1 billion in the past 12 months following the global collapse in markets in 2022.
The continent’s 19 billionaires are worth an estimated $81.8 billion, down from $84.9 billion held by 18 African billionaires a year ago. A 3.6% decline on the 2023 Forbes list follows a 15% increase last year on the strength of rising stock values from Nigeria to Zimbabwe.
Their prospects fell in lockstep with global share prices, with the S&P All Africa Index down more than 20% in the first nine months of 2022, before starting a late-year comeback that left the index down just 3% from a year earlier.
The Forbes announcement read in part, “Ths year list sees the return of South Africa’s Christophel Weiss, who with $1.1 billion is No. 18th position. Weiss, worth $6 billion after selling his bargain retailer PepCore for $5.7 billion in 2015, lost his billionaire status two years after an accounting scandal hit Steinhoff’s stock. He sued and in March 2022 collected 7 billion South African rands (about $400 million) from Steinhoff in cash and 5% of the shares of publicly traded Pepcor.
So, without further ado, here are the ten richest people in Africa in 2023
