Dangote Group, Nigeria’s burgeoning conglomerate, made up of over 15 subsidiaries has emerged BusinessWorld Investor of the Year 2010. The company’s emergence was a result of a survey of direct investments funded or sponsored within the 2010 financial year. Dangote Cement Plc, an amalgamated cement industry project made up of cement industry clusters built across the country and listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), in the last quarter of 2010 was picked as landmark investment in the real sector. The winning company has a whopping 15.5 billion shares listed on the NSE, a development that shot up the level of capitalisation of the exchange in real terms. By that development, the company buoyed the exchange by holding some 25 per cent of the market capitalisation of the NSE. This is the first time in the history of the NSE that a single investment can command such volume of control. What this means is that for every four shares on the exchange, Dangote Cement Plc has one.
BusinessWorld Economic Intelligence can reveal that the investment represents over 75 per cent of all the new investments which the capital market recorded in the five listings that were made in the year. The notable investments last year included Union Homes, Paints and Coating Manufacturers, NPF Microfinance, Multi-trex Plc and Dangote Cement Plc.  Dangote Group was considered the investor to beat based on the heavy financial content of the investment, volume impact of the shares on market capitalisation and employment generation. Our research also shows that the investment value is higher than other records from portfolio investors, and also notes that this record stands out in the market since the last five years.