Dangote Group

Nigerian industrial conglomerate, Dangote Group, which already controls two-thirds of Nigeria's domestic cement market, plans to build two new plants in southwest Ogun state. This will expand its Nigerian capacity to 26 million tonnes a year. It will also build a 2.5 million tonnes a year plant in Senegal, which is expected to come on stream in 2010.

Dangote has been growing aggressively. In April it acquired a 45 percent stake in South Africa's Sephaku Cement, a unit of Sephaku Holdings Ltd. It signed contracts worth $1.2 billion in February with Sinoma to built cement plants in Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Senegal and Zambia.

Dangote's other interests include the manufacture of sugar, flour, salt and spaghetti, as well as hydrocarbons, shipping and telecommunications.