Nigeria’s equities market ended August on a cautious note, holding onto a slim 0.31% gain despite heavy selloffs that erased much of the month’s earlier advance.
The All-Share Index opened at 139,863.5 points and briefly surged past the 146,000-mark mid-month, buoyed by momentum from July’s rally. But the gains proved fleeting.
A reversal in oil and gas stocks, combined with weakness in cement majors, dragged the benchmark down more than 3,500 points in the third week. The slide deepened with another 708-point drop in the final week, paring back almost all of August’s progress.
The index eventually closed at 140,295.5 points, just 432 points above where it began. While the headline gain looked modest, the underlying shifts were stark: some of Nigeria’s wealthiest investors booked billions in paper profits, while others absorbed steep markdowns in their banking and energy holdings.
Against this backdrop, fortunes tied to cement, consumer goods, energy, and finance experienced mixed reactions in terms of share price gains as well as losses.
In this article, we look at Nigerian billionaires with the highest share gains/losses in August 2025.
Loss: -N128.7 billion
Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, closed August with a sharp erosion in the value of his publicly listed companies, as declines in cement and sugar stocks shaved more than N128 billion from his paper wealth.
Dangote Cement Plc, the billionaire’s flagship company, slipped from N528.30 per share at the start of August to N520.20 at month’s end, a drop of 2%. The modest decline translated into an outsized hit because of the scale of Dangote’s holdings. His 27.6 million direct shares lost about N223.9 million, while his 14.62 billion indirect shares shed an estimated N118.4 billion.
Losses extended to Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc, where Dangote owns more than 653 million direct shares. Weakness in the stock during August erased another N10.1 billion from his position.
One bright spot came from NASCON Allied Industries Plc, which gained 11% over the month, partially offsetting the declines.
All told, Dangote’s listed wealth shrank by at least N128 billion in August 2025, showing how the performance of cement and sugar stocks continues to drive the fortunes of Africa’s richest investor.
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