Aliko Dangote has unveiled one of the boldest ideas in his business playbook career, and it has little to do with building factories. Instead, it is about re-engineering Nigeria’s capital market through a play of currency. Dangote has announced plans to list 10 percent of his $20 billion refinery on the Nigerian Exchange in 2026, a move that could fundamentally reshape the market and attract global investors seeking hard-currency returns.

He revealed this at the unveiling of the Dangote Vision 2030 roadmap in Lagos, outlining a long-term strategy centered on massive revenue growth, aggressive expansion in petrochemicals, and most notably a shift toward dollar-denominated dividends. The message was unmistakable: Dangote is positioning his companies for far greater international relevance. He confirmed that discussions are already advanced with the Nigerian Exchange and the Securities and Exchange Commission to finalize the structure of the offering, alongside engagements with the Ministry of Finance to secure approvals for the proposed dividend framework. As he put it succinctly: “You buy in naira, but you get dividends in dollars.”

If this plan succeeds, it will trigger a tectonic shift in Nigeria’s capital market. It will set a new benchmark that leading Nigerian banks, many of which already earn substantial dollar revenues through their African subsidiaries, will be forced to match or risk losing investor interest. In a market where capital seeks protection from currency risk, USD-denominated dividends will become a powerful magnet. If Dangote delivers this model, investors will naturally gravitate toward it, compelling others to follow. This is not just a listing; it is a strategic redesign of how value is captured and distributed in Nigeria’s financial markets.

It may not be bad for Naira provided the equities are paid for in Naira even as the dividends come in USD.

“You Buy In Naira, But You Get Dividends In Dollars”: Dangote Affirms Plan Of Refinery’s Historic NGX Listing In 2026

Aliko Dangote has opened a new chapter for his industrial empire with a sweeping plan to list a 10 percent stake in his $20 billion refinery on the Nigerian Exchange in 2026, a move that could reshape Nigeria’s capital market and pull in global investors hungry for hard-currency returns.

He affirmed the plan at the unveiling of the Dangote Vision 2030 roadmap in Lagos, where he laid out a long-term strategy built around massive revenue growth, aggressive expansion in petrochemicals, and a bold shift toward dollar-denominated dividends for shareholders. His message throughout the evening carried the tone of a man positioning his companies for far larger international visibility.

During the presentation, Dangote said his team is already deep in talks with regulators at both the Nigerian Exchange and the Securities and Exchange Commission to finalize the structure of next year’s public offering. He noted that the initiative also includes ongoing engagement with the Ministry of Finance to secure the necessary approvals for the proposed payout framework.

“You buy in naira, but you get dividends in dollars,” he said, adding that the final go-ahead for this framework would come from the Finance Minister.

The dollar-dividend plan is anchored on the refinery’s growing export capacity. Dangote explained that shareholders across Dangote Cement, the refinery, and the fertilizer business would benefit from returns funded by roughly $6.4 billion in annual export earnings. The bulk of that money is expected to come from sales of polypropylene, fertilizer, and other petrochemical products, which will supply the consistent foreign-exchange inflows needed for payouts in US currency.

Analysts say this could mark a major turning point for the Nigerian market, providing a rare instrument that offers hard-currency income at a time when the local currency has struggled.

The refinery listing also aligns with a broader expansion drive that will define the next phase of the conglomerate’s trajectory. Dangote is targeting revenue of about $100 billion by 2030, a leap from the current $18 billion. The ambition is matched by an equally aggressive pursuit of scale, including a plan to push group-wide market capitalization beyond $200 billion before the end of the decade. Within that horizon, Dangote hopes to place his group among the world’s top 100 companies by value.

For the refinery itself, the numbers continue to climb. The 650,000-barrel-per-day plant is already turning out diesel, aviation fuel, and petrol, and Dangote disclosed that capacity will rise to 1.4 million barrels per day within three years. That would make the project one of the largest single-site refineries anywhere in the world and strengthen its role in Nigeria’s effort to produce its own fuels on a large scale.

He called the planned NGX listing the refinery’s first real step toward opening its ownership to the public, and added that secondary listings abroad could follow later, even though the Nigerian market remains the starting point.

“We want the Dangote Refinery to be the golden stock of the Exchange,” he said.

The refinery’s offering is expected to draw vigorous attention from institutional investors. With capacity climbing, export receipts rising, and a potential dollar-dividend structure on the table, analysts say the transaction could become one of the defining market events of the decade, setting a new standard for how large Nigerian companies court global capital.

However, the decision to list a 10 percent stake has stirred debate among analysts who say the offer is too small for a project of such scale, and signals his intent to retain tight control of what is now the most powerful industrial asset in the country.

A refinery of this magnitude would normally be expected to offer a wider public float that encourages broader price discovery, deeper liquidity, and greater institutional participation. Instead, Dangote’s decision to cap the float at 10 percent is being read as a strategic move to maintain overwhelming command of the asset. Given the refinery’s revenue potential, control of the boardroom translates into control of pricing, export strategy, and supply decisions that will shape Nigeria’s fuels market for decades.

So far, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited’s existing stake in the refinery appears to be the largest. NNPC holds 7.2 percent of the project and has openly stated its intention to raise that stake to 20 percent once regulatory conditions allow. If that purchase proceeds, NNPC would become the largest minority shareholder, creating a new equation in which control of the refinery is split between Dangote’s majority position and the government-backed oil company’s strategic influence.

Looking ahead, the dollar-dividend model remains one of the listing’s main attractions. In a currency environment where volatility has made planning difficult for both corporates and individuals, the prospect of regular dollar income has already begun to generate interest among foreign and domestic funds.

Oracle shares suffered a dramatic decline, plummeting by 13% on Thursday following the issuance of a significantly weaker-than-expected earnings forecast.

This sharp drop, which threatened to erase over $90 billion from Oracle’s market capitalization, triggered a broader selloff across the technology sector. The plunge points to a growing skepticism among investors regarding the immense capital cost and delayed profitability associated with the company’s aggressive, debt-fueled expansion into Artificial Intelligence (AI) infrastructure.

The disappointing financial predictions from the crucial OpenAI cloud-computing partner revealed the uneven and often protracted returns from the nascent technology. While many corporate leaders believe AI is the future, Oracle’s results suggest that the massive upfront investments have so far yielded only limited, visible productivity gains or corresponding revenue spikes.

The Financial Strain of the AI Build-Out

Oracle’s financial health is currently being defined by its commitment to the AI race. The company, long a smaller cloud player, dramatically escalated its profile by securing a massive $300 billion cloud computing deal with OpenAI, beginning in 2027. This high-stakes partnership has tightly linked Oracle’s fortunes to the AI startup, leading to increased stock volatility fueled by concerns that rivals like Google may be pulling ahead of OpenAI.

The core financial concerns center on an astonishing acceleration in capital expenditure (CapEx) that is currently straining the balance sheet:

Oracle shocked the market by announcing that its expected CapEx for fiscal year 2026 is now projected to be $15 billion higher than its estimates just last September. This increase pushes the company’s total planned spending to an unprecedented level over the planning horizon, primarily to fund the construction of colossal data centers necessary to meet the demanding requirements of its AI contracts. The OpenAI agreement alone is expected to utilize 4.5 gigawatts of power capacity over the five-year term of the deal.

The immediate cost of this expansion is visible in the company’s cash flow. Oracle reported burning approximately $10 billion in cash during the first half of its fiscal year due to these AI investments, resulting in a negative free cash flow of around -$13.18 billion in the most recent quarter. To finance this build-out, the company has increasingly relied on debt, holding approximately $100 billion in total debt.

Further dampening sentiment, Oracle missed Wall Street consensus estimates for its total revenue, which came in at $16.06 billion versus expectations of around $16.21 billion. It also issued a third-quarter revenue growth forecast that fell below Wall Street estimates, signaling margin pressure as the investment cycle ramps up.

Credit Markets Signal Caution

The sheer scale and speed of Oracle’s debt-fueled CapEx have injected anxiety into the credit markets. This behavior—relying on significant bond issuance rather than strong operating cash flows—marks a departure for Big Tech companies, though rivals like Meta and Amazon.com have also recently issued over $30 billion and $15 billion in bonds, respectively, to finance their AI infrastructure arms race.

Concerns about Oracle’s debt were immediately reflected in derivatives markets. The cost to insure against Oracle’s default, measured by credit-default swaps (CDS), surged by nearly 12 basis points on Thursday, reaching a minimum of five-year highs. Investors are actively dumping Oracle bonds while piling into these CDS contracts to hedge against potential default risk.

The market value hit to Oracle directly impacted its leadership. Larry Ellison, whose net worth of $276 billion (according to Forbes) is largely derived from his roughly 40% stake in the company, saw his net worth potentially decline by more than $30 billion in the wake of the stock plunge.

Broader Tech Sector Selloff

Oracle’s struggles triggered a sympathetic selloff across the entire AI-focused segment, heightening fears that the ongoing AI market frenzy has become an investment bubble reminiscent of the 1990s dot-com boom. This fear is exacerbated by the circular deals and massive, undetailed future spending commitments, such as those from OpenAI (valued at $500 billion but still unprofitable), which is expected to spend over $1 trillion on AI infrastructure by 2030.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell to a one-week low as other AI-related stocks and chipmakers followed Oracle’s trajectory. Key components of the AI supply chain—including Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, Micron, Broadcom, and Arm Holdings—all recorded declines ranging from 3.1% to 4.2%.

Despite the immediate negative market reaction, at least 13 brokerages cut their price targets, but some analysts defended the company’s strategy. BofA Global Research analysts argued that the decline represents an investment cycle payment, stating, “The current weakness is more capex investment cycles needed to support demand, with the company paying the price for the abnormal speed in which investment is required to meet current AI demand trends.”

However, the market is demanding greater clarity. Oracle now trades at a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 29.56, still slightly above that of rivals like Microsoft at 27.24 and Amazon at 29.06, leaving its current valuation under intense scrutiny until its massive CapEx translates into sustained, high-margin cloud revenue.