Dangote Refinery IPO raises N1.5trn  as  Bamboo, other crash

The initial public offering (IPO) of Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals FZE drew roughly N1.5 trillion in subscriptions within six hours of opening on the Nigerian Exchange in Lagos on Monday, in what is being described as the largest IPO in Africa.  

The IPO is targeting up to 10 million retail investors, making it one of the most accessible major equity offerings Nigeria has seen. Bamboo and Cowrywise overwhelmed by demand The surge in demand caused serious problems for two popular fintech investment platforms.  

Bamboo told its users it was seeing “much higher than expected traffic trying to get into the Dangote IPO and it’s making it difficult for some users to log into the Bamboo app,” adding that its team was working to restore normal access shortly. 

Cowrywise issued a similar notice, saying: “We’re currently seeing more traffic than usual on the Cowrywise app. Our team is already on it and working to get things back to normal.” 

The outages drew complaints from investors who could not place their orders. Retail investor Vallisangel Faith said the situation exposed the need for investment companies to prepare adequately for periods of unusually high demand. Ogudu Mikel said he was struggling to log into the Cowrywise app at all. 

Fintech specialist May Codegidi compared the experience unfavourably with buying shares through traditional banks, saying some platforms appeared unable to cope with the volume generated by the IPO.