Mo Dewji cements position as East Africa's top billionaire

Dar es Salaam. Tanzanian businessman Mohamed Dewji has climbed two places in the latest Forbes billionaire list and has emerged as the only dollar billionaire in East Africa.

In the latest rankings published on Monday Forbes Magazine has ranked Mr Dewji, fondly known as Mo, as the 13th richest individual in Africa and the 1,913th globally with a fortune of $1.5 billion. In last year’s list, Mo was ranked 15th.

Mo has managed to maintain the level he attained in last year’s rankings despite the fact that Africa’s wealthiest people shed a combined $3.1 billion during the period from January to December, 2022.

Mo’s Mohamed Enterprises Tanzania Limited (MeTL) Group is active in textile manufacturing, flour milling, beverages and edible oils.

Forbes Magazine says the list of African billionaires involves those who reside in Africa or have their primary businesses in the continent. Net worth [of individual billionaires] was calculated using stock prices and currency exchange rates from the close of business on Friday, January 13, 2023, according to Forbes.

“To value privately held businesses, we start with estimates of revenues or profits and apply prevailing price-to-sale or price-to-earnings ratios for similar public companies,” Forbes writer Rob Lafranco writes in the Magazine.

Topping the list is Nigerian industrialist Aliko Dangote with $13.5 billion, followed by South African Johann Rupert with $10.9 billion.

As a group, according to the list, the continent’s 19 billionaires are worth an estimated $81.5 billion – down from $84.9 billion a year ago. MeTL has operations in at least six other countries in eastern and southern Africa.

MeTL, a Tanzanian conglomerate founded by his father in the 1970s