Angola Lists Unitel, Seized From Isabel dos Santos

ANGOLA · MARKETS

The Unitel IPO moves to market this week, as Angola begins the roadshow to sell 15 percent of the telecoms giant it seized from Isabel dos Santos, once ranked Africa’s richest woman. The listing on Luanda’s BODIVA exchange is the boldest test yet of President João Lourenço’s privatisation drive.

What the Unitel IPO offers investors

Unitel, Angola’s largest telecommunications company, said in a statement that it is preparing to float shares on the local exchange and will start pitching the offer to institutional and retail investors within days. The government plans to sell about 15 percent.

A slice of roughly 2 percent is set aside for employees, a nod to how thoroughly control has changed hands. Price range, valuation and the first trading date will follow the roadshow.

The flotation would be the largest yet on the Angolan Debt and Securities Exchange, known as BODIVA. Officials describe it as a milestone for the country’s capital markets.

From family empire to state asset

Unitel was built into a dominant carrier during the era of José Eduardo dos Santos, who ruled Angola for 38 years. His daughter Isabel held 25 percent through her investment vehicle Vidatel, alongside a stake held by General Leopoldino Fragoso do Nascimento, known as Dino.

In October 2022 the state seized those private stakes and took full ownership. The company then counted about 30 million subscribers and an 80 percent share of the market.

The operator was long regarded as a pillar of the dos Santos business empire. Its scale made it one of the most valuable companies in Lusophone Africa.

The fall of Africa’s first female billionaire

Isabel dos Santos was once ranked by Forbes as Africa’s richest woman, with a fortune above $2 billion. Her legal troubles have multiplied since her father left power.

A London court froze more than $700 million of her assets in December 2023 in a dispute with Unitel over defaulted loans. In 2025 a Dutch court found her liable for embezzling about $61 million from Sonangol, the state oil company she once chaired.

She denies all wrongdoing and says she is the target of a politically driven campaign, contesting the cases from Dubai, where she lives. She has argued her assets were expropriated without due process.

Angola’s bid to build a real capital market

The listing is the flagship of ProPriv, the privatisation programme meant to loosen the state’s grip on strategic industries and deepen a stock market that remains small and thinly traded.

Unitel has spent months preparing, converting accumulated reserves into share capital of about 250 billion kwanza to tidy its balance sheet. The privatisation agency says the pipeline could eventually touch scores of state assets.

The company also holds a controlling stake in Banco de Fomento Angola, one of the country’s most profitable banks, whose own partial listing has been moving through the market. That cross-holding makes the IPO a test of investor appetite for large Angolan offerings, according to Billionaires.Africa.

Why it matters beyond Angola

President Lourenço has staked much of his reputation on selling state assets, attracting foreign capital and signalling a break with the patronage of his predecessor. A strong Unitel debut hands him a visible win; a weak one raises questions about the depth of Angola’s markets.

For the wider Lusophone world, from Lisbon to São Paulo, the sale is a signal case of a Portuguese-speaking economy trying to turn seized oligarch wealth into public shareholding. Frontier investors will read the order book closely.

What began as a family-controlled champion is set to become one of the first big names on Angola’s fledgling exchange. Whether investors reward it will say as much about confidence in Lourenço’s reforms as about the company itself.

The offer of shares to ordinary Angolans and to Unitel’s own staff carries symbolism of its own. A company once run for a presidential family is being repackaged as a public asset.

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