YIPEE.. TWO BLACK AFRICANS ON THE FORBES LIST

For a long time the FORBES Billionaires list had only three Africans on the list. The Openheimer Family-heirs to the De Beers fortune,Johan rupert -BAT and Richemont and the Sawiris owners of the ORASCOM group.The Openheimer's and Rupert's are white Africans and the Egyptians are Arabs.(hope i dont seem racist).

Now we have two black Africans Aliko Dangote of the DANGOTE Group Nigeria and Patrice Motsepe of the ARM mining group( Patrice has a 5.5% stake in SANLAM the parent co. of Pan Africa Holdings -Kenya).

All great wealth tends to attract controversy.Dangote is accused of being too close to the former President Olusegun Obasanjo.Motsepe is accused of using black empowerment laws to enrich himself.

The FORBES list favours those whose wealth is in listed firms.Hence, as more of the developing world's capital markets become advanced, more Third worlders should make the grade.

Here's a link to an interesting BBC article on both.

By the way
The Nairobi Stock Exchange's Market Capitalisation(Value of all the shares listed on the exchange) is approximately Kshs 850 billion. Assuming 1US$ =Kshs 65, then the Market Capitalisation in US$ is 13 Billion.Motsepe's net worth is put at US$ 2.4Billion and Dangote's at US$ 5.5 Billion. do the math.