Forbes 2014 Rich List: Aliko Dangote Tops 10 Richest African Billionaire

Forbes released its 2014 billionaires list this week, and a record 1,645 people made the list including 29 Africans worth $1 billion or more — nine more than last year. Here are the richest known people — and in some cases, families — in Africa: 10 Africans you didn’t know were billionaires. 

10. Mohamed Mansour 

Mohamed Mansour of Egypt owns of the world’s largest GM dealership along with his two brothers, Yasseen and Youssef (also on the billionaires list, but slightly lower down), and is worth $3.1 billion, Forbes reports. 

9. Nathan Kirsh

Worth $3.1 billion, Nathan Kirsh is the only Swazi national on Forbes’ Top 10 list. He is the founder of Jetro Holdings, a cash-and-carry wholesaler for grocery stores, but made his first millions after founding a corn-milling business in Swaziland in 1958, Forbes reports. 

8. Christoffel Wiese

Also clocking in at $3.2 billion, the South African retail mogul owns a chain of low-price supermarkets, Shoprite, located across multiple African countries. Christoffel Wiese also has assets in discount fashion brands, a five star hotel and a private equity firm, according to Forbes. 

7. Issad Rebrab 

Algeria’s richest man, Issad Rebrab, is worth $3.2 billion thanks in a large part to his stake in his family’s business conglomerate Cevital, which has interests in auto distribution, mining, agriculture and sugar refining among others and is Algeria’s largest family-owned business group, employing some 12,000 people including all five of Rebrab’s children, Forbes reports.

6. Isabel Dos Santos

Worth $3.7 billion, Isabel dos Santos of Angola is Africa’s richest woman and one of only two female billionaires on the continent — and the only woman to make Africa’s Top 10 wealthiest. The oldest daughter of Angola’s president Eduardo dos Santos, she owns large stakes in a number of blue-chip companies in Angola and Portugal including Angolan cell phone company Unitel. It is purported, however, that many of Isabel’s assets are actually held by her in trust for her father. 

5. Mike Adenuga 

The founder of Nigeria’s second largest mobile phone network, Globacom, is notoriously reclusive, Forbes reports  , hardly ever granting press interviews and always traveling with plenty of bodyguards. He is worth $4.6 billion with a portion of his wealth also derived from oil profits – he has the rights to some of Nigeria’s lucrative oil fields that his other company, Conoil Producing, mines. 

4. Nassef Sawiris 

Tied with the Oppenheimer family when it comes to net worth, with $6.7 billion to play with, is Nassef Sawiris. He is the CEO of Egypt’s most valuable publicly-traded company, Orascom Construction Industries, according to Forbes.

3. Nicky Oppenheimer

Nicky Oppenheimer & Family The descendants of South Africa’s original diamond barrens, the Oppenheimers, are worth $6.7 billion. A number that was buoyed when they sold their 40% stake in the family diamond business, De Beers, in July 2012, in a $5.1 billion all-cash deal to Anglo American. Although no longer majority shareholders in the diamond business, the Oppenheimer family still makes a profit through investments with private equity firm Tana Africa Capital, Forbes reports.

2. Johann Rupert

Johann Rupert & Family Forbes ranks the luxury good tycoon from South Africa as its number two richest man on the continent, worth $7.6 billion. He owns the Swiss-based luxury goods outfit Compagnie Financiere Richemont, which you might not have heard of, but its top end brands Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and Montblanc among others, are household luxury names. 

Aliko Dangote

Worth $25 billion, Aliko Dangote of Nigeria, has been Africa’s richest man for four years now. He made his fortune producing cement, milling flour and refining sugar and food beverages and is $9 billion richer than last year, according to Forbes.