As of December 2022, Airtel Africa retained the top position as the most valuable listed company in Nigeria, with Dangote Cement and MTN Nigeria occupying the second and third positions.
Although there are very valuable privately-owned companies with unicorn status in Nigeria, this article only focuses on companies listed on the Nigerian Exchange.
Nairametrics determines the valuations of listed companies using their market value which are publicly available. This is unlike the valuations of many privately-held companies which are often based on venture capital or private equity.
What the data is saying: The Nigerian equities market, represented by its All Share Index, ended December with a total market capitalization of about N27.9 trillion.
- Nigeria’s top ten most valuable equities had a combined market valuation of N22.8 trillion or an equivalent of $49.4 billion, assuming the official exchange rate of (N461.5/$1).
- Among them are 5 stocks worth over one trillion which Nairametrics refers to as SWOOTs.
- Combined, the SWOOTs are worth about N18.1 trillion or $40.7 billion, a whopping 70% of the total market cap of $58.3 billion.
- The SWOOTs are Airtel, Dangote Cement, MTN Nigeria, BUA Cement, and BUA Foods.
- Companies are often revered when they attain unicorn status, which means they are worth over $1 billion.
- Based on our data and using the official exchange rate, all but one of the companies on our list are worth over one billion dollars.
Biggest gainers in December 2022: Airtel Africa recorded the highest gain in terms of valuation. The company’s market capitalization rose by 61.4% from N3.5 trillion recorded as of December 2021 to N6.14 trillion by end of December 2022.
- MTN Nigeria rose by 2.9% from N4.01 trillion recorded as of the end of December 2021 to N4.37 trillion by the end of the review month.
- BUA Cement and BUA Foods (both majority-owned by billionaire business magnate Abdulsamad Rabiu) posted a valuation of N3.3 trillion ($7.1 billion) and N1.17 trillion ($2.5 billion), respectively.
- On the other hand, Nestle Nigeria recorded the biggest loss, with a decline of N361 billion, followed by Dangote Cement, Zenith Bank and GTB with N68.1 billion, N12.5 billion and N88.2 billlion losses, respectively.
- Highlighted in the graph below are the most valuable companies in Nigeria based on their market capitalisation as of December 2022.
