Aliko Dangote Loses $7.8 Billion To Stock Market

According to a report by Forbes, Dangote, Tony Elumelu and Jim Ovia lost a lot of money as a result of
the devaluation of Naira. The Forbes

report by Mfon obong Nsehe below…

A few weeks ago, the Governor of the Central Bank of
Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, announced a nearly 10%
devaluation of the Naira, Nigeria's currency, after
admitting that a plunge in world oil prices and
dwindling dollar reserves were making it difficult to
defend the value of the currency. The Naira is now trading at N187 to $1, compared to N165 in
November. In dollar terms, the devaluation has
knocked more than $40 billion off the value of
Nigeria's economy.

Dangote is the biggest loser among Nigeria's richest
people as the Naira's slump, coupled with falling
stock prices, has erased more than $7.8b of his
fortune since Feb, when Forbes locked in the values
for its annual ranking of the World's Billionaires.

Dangote was worth $25 billion at the time; as of
market close on Tuesday, he's worth $17.2 billion.
More than half of the drop in his fortune has
happened since early November. As of Nov. 7,
Dangote was worth $21.6 billion, $4.4 billion more
than now.

Here's why: The last few weeks have been a bit of
a disaster for many companies listed on the Nigerian
Stock Exchange. Several blue-chip stocks such as
Dangote Cement, Zenith Bank, Transcorp and United
Bank of Africa among several others have hit one-
year-lows as a result of the fall in oil prices, a general uncertainty regarding the 2015 general elections,
Central Bank regulatory headwinds, and weak
earnings from large cap companies. These have all
contributed toward putting naira-denominated assets
including equities at risk.

After Dangote, the second biggest loser among
Nigeria's ultra-rich is Tony Elumelu, the Chairman of
Heirs Holdings, an investment company. Heirs
Holdings, which is wholly-owned by Elumelu, is the
controlling shareholder in Transcorp, a publicly-listed
conglomerate with interests in power production, hotels and agriculture. Transcorp's current market
capitalization is now $700 million, down from $1.4
billion at the beginning of November. Heirs Holdings
has lost an estimated $345 million in paper value on
Transcorp, and its stake in the company as at Monday
is now worth roughly $400 million, down from $700 million. Elumelu's investments in other listed
companies like UBA, Africa Prudential PLC and UBA
Capital have shed a little over $27 million in value.

Other big losers include Nigerian multi-millionaire
banker Jim Ovia, a co-founder of Zenith Bank. The
value of his stake in the financial services provider is
$240 million as of late Monday, down from more than
$350 million last month. He owns a 9% stake in the
bank.

Source......GossipMill