Chief Executive Officer of MTN Group, Ralph Mupita
Dangote Industries has appointed the Chief Executive Officer of MTN Group, Ralph Mupita, to the board of Dangote Fertiliser Limited, as the company steps up preparations for a planned listing on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX).
The appointment was confirmed by the Managing Director of Dangote Fertiliser, Vishwajit Sinha, in an email response to enquiries from Bloomberg.
The move is widely regarded as a strategic decision ahead of the company’s proposed initial public offering (IPO), expected later this year. Dangote Fertiliser currently produces about three million metric tonnes of granulated urea annually from its $2.5 billion production complex in Lagos and has outlined ambitious plans to scale operations and become the world’s largest fertiliser producer by 2028.
Mupita’s addition to the board brings strong capital markets and corporate governance experience at a critical time for the business. He is credited with leading the landmark listing of MTN Nigeria on the NGX in 2019, one of the most significant capital market transactions in the country’s recent history. Since then, MTN Nigeria’s revenues have more than quadrupled, with the company now valued at about $8.6 billion, making it the exchange’s second-largest listed firm behind BUA Foods.
The MTN Group chief executive has led Africa’s largest telecommunications operator by subscriber base for over five years, having joined the company in 2017 as Chief Financial Officer. Before MTN, he held senior leadership roles at South Africa-based financial services group Old Mutual and is an engineer by training, a background seen as fitting for the industrial scale and technical complexity of Dangote’s operations.
As part of its growth strategy, Dangote plans to expand its Lagos fertiliser facility and begin construction of a new plant in Ethiopia this year, further deepening its footprint across Africa. Beyond fertiliser, the group has also disclosed plans to list its refinery business. The expansion and planned IPOs come amid rising demand for agricultural inputs across Africa, where the African Development Bank estimates the sector could grow into a more than $1 trillion market by 2030, offering major opportunities for large-scale producers like Dangote Fertiliser.
