Hey crew, here’s to another week of cutting through the noise and focusing on what actually moves financial minds forward.

Just the stuff affecting wallets, business & the economy:

🛢️ “IPO For The People”: Dangote አጎቴ Invited Us. The Fine Print Not So Much

😏 Optasia Flirts With Ethiopian Businesses

Here’s to the 130th weekly edition

Let’s dive in.

Usually, when a billionaire invites you to invest alongside him…sorry, we wouldn’t know how to complete that sentence.

Got ahead of ourselves there. We’re the type to ask our friends to send us screenshot confirmations when they pay us back for something.

Nevertheless, Dangote አጎቴ has an invitation, and it starts at ETB 74.90 a share for his oil refinery business.

Finally, an industrial empire appears within reach of our budget.

We’ve already practiced introducing ourselves at networking events as “we’re in the oil business”.

Then we read the eligibility requirements 🚧: ETB 10 million in qualifying net worth, just to participate. And only 100 investors out of a population of over 130 million will be chosen.

We stopped practicing.

The share itself is affordable. At least it seems like it.

Quick ፍራንክ note: This isn’t investment advice. Please give the prospectus some attention before committing your money.

This offer concerns Dangote’s operational oil refinery in Lagos, Nigeria. The planned refinery in Lamu, Kenya, which we covered a few weeks ago, is a separate project.

Same businessman, different investment. Let’s establish that before anyone starts inspecting land near the Kenyan coast.

Through the IPO, its first public share offering, the company aims to raise approximately $1.6 billion. The 4.1 billion new shares would represent roughly 3.3% of the enlarged company. Proceeds would help fund a $14.3 billion expansion intended to double refining capacity to approximately 1.4 million barrels a day.

Those of you looking for a good bedtime read are welcome to look through the 195 page prospectus.

The refinery’s CFO presented $22.5 billion in revenue and $4.7 billion in profit after tax for the first nine months of 2026, according to The Reporter. Those are management figures presented at the roadshow.

The prospectus’s audited six-month results show $13.9 billion in revenue and $1.82 billion in profit.

Whichever period you examine, these are serious numbers.

Still, 74.90 Birr per share tells you remarkably little about whether the investment is cheap, or even good value.

Cut a cake into a billion slices and each slice becomes affordable. The question is what you are paying for the whole cake, and whether future earnings justify it.

Ethiopia’s offer is restricted to qualified investors: eligible institutions and individuals with at least ETB 10 million in net worth, excluding their primary home and one car.

That is an eligibility test, not a requirement to invest ETB 10 million.

Furthermore, per last week’s Ethiopian Capital Market Authority’s (ECMA) notice, this route permits only up to 100 investors, unless ECMA approves more.

Hence, meeting the eligibility criteria does not in itself guarantee you a ticket to Lagos.

You still have to win the lottery.

Which begs the question, if 500 investors qualify and register their interest, who selects the 100? Using what criteria? None of the sources we’ve reviewed address this soon-to-be major issue.

ECMA’s notice also restricts subsequent transfers, so easy resale of your hard-won shares should not be assumed.

The proposed local mechanism is what’s called a depositary receipt: an Ethiopian-held asset representing an interest in the Nigerian shares you’d be buying. Your money crosses borders; the receipt gives you a local record of your shares.

It’s still unclear how the currency exchange will be handled. The final terms will also determine fees, dividend handling and other rights. Be sure to ask about these if, well first thing’s first, you qualify, and you’re considering this investment.

t feels a bit like nobody really understands the rules, but someone is already waving you forward.

CBE Capital’s subscription form adds a 1.6% commission. An illustrative 1,000-share purchase therefore costs ETB 76,098.40, including that commission.

Wegagen Capital and United Capital are the two other investment banks facilitating this offer.

Again, do your research, on the merits of the investment itself and the investment bank you’ll be working with.

This thing that we hold in our hands is quite the stuff.

It can call people, text your crush, consult ChatGPT for things you’re too ashamed to ask Google and now, it can be your gateway to get the wad of cash you need to jump start your business.

Yes, we’re talking about your phone.

This “simple” device is now becoming your lifeline, lose it and the world turns upside down.

It’s become so essential and if you’re a business owner, it can double as a bank branch.

So you won’t be surprised to open up your business sales app, check your metrics and then respond to that nonchalant notification bell: ‘We have found a loan befitting of you!’

Well, this is the world that Optasia wants to create, sort of.

To explain, let’s avoid the epic history lesson potentially to be narrated by the great Morgan Freeman and just give you a quick flashback.

When credit started back when men had long beards, wore comfortable robes while showing off their new sandals 3000s, the bonding factor was trust.

Your name and reputation gave you credibility.

In a way, that’s still true today.

But trust can only go so far, when the stakes are high (more money, more risk of a loss), then other factors come into place.

Let’s say that Bekele, your local pharmacist, is new and wants to get a loan to stock up more aspirin to his shelves. In this case, the trust doesn’t exist yet.

So traditionally, he is asked for collateral (Ethiopian lenders favorite word) before even writing his name of the loan application form.

What Optasia, a Dubai-based fintech working AI into credit scoring, is looking to do is to collaborate with a local partner which holds good data and possesses a vast distribution network.

But AI in its raw form can only do so much, it needs data to gain context and analyze certain nuances.

ETTAs rollout of Zoorya, their smart POS which we see deployed at the likes of Bambis and Sishu, is a good fit for this.

These numbers alone make for a compelling case.

So instead of the business asking for a loan, Optasia accesses the Zoorya data and suggests loan amount, terms and repayment periods directly.

In this case, data is business metrics (we presume things like sales, cost of inventory, cash flow etc.)

The business gets a fast and easy loan offer, Zoorya gets more activity (since cash flow is a big factor here) and Optasia gets to handle the origination as tech provider.

Everyone is a happy camper 😊

And why is this subject dear to ፍራንክ’s heart?

Well, as you know, we tend to roam the corridors of the financial technology dormitories.

And quite frankly (no pun intended), this is the approach we would have taken: embed your product inside someone else’s, use their data to determine if the business is worthy enough, send an offer and voila!

Well, it’s more complicated than that but your get the point.

Cash is the lifeline of every businesses, it comes in, it goes out. Use it well, and it serves its purpose.

Today, the Ethiopian financial system is looking at digital lending and wondering how it could match consumer expectations with realistic ROI for lenders.

Michu at COOP opened the door, it has grown to a behemoth.

Optasia is taking it a step further and swinging it wide open.

While the issue of access and affordability might be slowly solved, the question remains how businesses understand credit and what educational tools can be used to mitigate potential losses.

Alas, technology alone is not the answer. Maybe we should suggest a subscription to ፍራንክ Digest?