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The combined wealth of Aliko Dangote, Abdulsamad Rabiu and Mike Adenuga declined by $9.3 billion in 2023, according to Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires ranking.
Forbes’ wealth-tracking platform provides ongoing updates on the net worth and ranking of each individual confirmed to be a billionaire. The value of individuals’ public holdings are updated every five minutes when respective stock markets are open.
Dangote, Rabiu and Adenuga saw their wealth drop by 33.9 per cent to $18.1 billion as at 3pm on December 29, 2023 from $27.4 billion on January 30.
A breakdown of the data shows that Dangote’s fortune fell by $4.1 billion to $9.4 billion; Rabiu’s wealth declined by $1.9 billion to $5.7 billion; and Adenuga’s dropped by $3.3 billion to $3 billion.
The liberalisation of the foreign exchange regime in June as part of measures to revive the economy led to a large devaluation of the naira.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) merged all segments of the FX market into the Investors and Exporters window, and reintroduced the willing buyer, willing seller model.
The naira has continued to depreciate against the dollar and other major foreign currencies since then.
The official exchange rate fell from N463.38/$ to N1,043.09/$ as of December 28. At the parallel market, the naira depreciated to 1,210/$ from 762/$.
Forbes reported in June that Dangote had fallen from his perch as Africa’s richest person for the first time in 12 years. It said Johann Rupert of South Africa, who built a fortune in luxury goods and more, overtook the Nigerian industrialist.
“The decline of Dangote’s fortune comes in the wake of the CBN’s decision to float its currency, the naira, on June 14, abandoning the fixed exchange rate with the U.S. dollar,” it added.
The billionaires in Nigeria increased the country’s wealth by 19.7 per cent in one year, according to the latest 2023 Billionaires Ambitious report.
The report by UBS, a multinational investment bank and financial services company, showed that their total wealth rose to $28.5 billion in April 2023 from $23.8 billion in the same period of last year.
“An obvious reason for the uptick in wealth would be the benefit of the stronger oil price, given that Nigeria is usually Africa’s biggest oil producer,” analysts at UBS said.
A recent Henley Private Wealth Migration report projected that Africa’s most populous country would see the exit of 300 dollar millionaires in 2023, up from 200 in 2022.
This will make the country the second-biggest loser of millionaires on the continent after South Africa, which is expected to see a net outflow of 500 millionaires.
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