Isabel dos Santos was born on 20 April 1973, in Baku, (then) Azerbaijan SSR, to Tatiana Kukanova, a chess champion, and Angola’s President José Eduardo dos Santos, of Russian and Angolan descent. She is a businesswoman, best known as the richest woman in Africa.
So just how wealthy is Isabel dos Santos? According to the authoritative Forbes magazine, Santos has acquired a net worth of over $3.2 billion as of early 2017. Her fortune has been established since the early 1990s through her various investments and businesses related to banking, telecom, cement and diamond industries. Her assets include stakes in major companies such as Unitel, Sonangol, Banco BIC, Banco Português de Investimento, Galp Energia, Nos and Efacec Power Solutions.
Isabel dos Santos Net Worth 3.2 billion
Santos’ parents separated during her childhood, and she liveed with her mother in London, attending St Paul’s Girls School, and later enrolling at London’s King’s College to study electrical engineering. In the early ’90, she returned to her father in Luanda, Angola, and landed a job as a project manager engineer for Urbana 2000, a subsidiary of Jembas Group. Around the same time, she became involved in the trucking business. In 1997 she opened a beachside bar and restaurant on Luanda Island, called Miami Beach Club, paving her way to establish a number of holdings, both in Angola and abroad, in the sectors of telecommunications, media, finance, retail and the energy industry, through which she has built a vast empire. Her net worth was well established.
Today, Santos owns a huge piece of Luanda’s major businesses, with a 25% stake in Unitel, the largest mobile ‘phone network in Angola that has over 80 stores in Luanda and over 10 million clients in the country – this is her most valuable asset at an estimated $1 billion. She is the owner of Candando, the first Angolan supermarket, and Jadeium, a stake-holding company. She also has shares in Nova Cimangola, an Angolan cement company, as well as in Condis, an Angolan retail investment company. Santos heads Angola’s state-owned oil giant Sonangol.
Her assets also include a 42.5% stake in Banco BIC Portugues, an Angolan bank in Portugal, which is the country’s fourth largest bank, and a 20% stake in Banco Português de Investimento, the third largest private Portuguese financial group. She has a 7% stake in the Portugese oil and gas firm Galp Energia, and is the main shareholder of the Portuguese cable TV and telecom company Nos, former ZON Multimédia, with a 29% stake; her investment in the company is valued at over $385 million. In addition, she owns a stake in the Portuguese electric power equipment firm called Efacec Power Solutions.
Along with her mother, Santos is involved in the Gibraltar-based diamond business called Trans Africa Investment Services. Additionally, the successful businesswoman serves on the board of many Angolan and Portuguese companies, such as Unitel and Banco BIC. Santos has been Africa’s only female billionaire, and also the continent’s youngest person to accumulate such significant stakes in several industries. This has enabled her to become the most influential businessperson in Angola, establishing an amazing personal wealth.
However, the rapid growth of Santos’ assets and net worth has frequently been questioned for its legality, especially after her father transferred his shares to several holding companies of his daughter, and appointed her as the chair of a new board of directors for Sonangol, suggesting that the Angolan State may be illegally involved in financing Santos’ private investments. However, Santos has stated that her wealth is self-made and does not involve her father.
When speaking about her private life, Santos has been married to Congolese businessman Sindika Dokolo since 2002. The couple’s wedding ceremony reportedly cost around $4 million. Aside from business, she is the president of the Angola Red Cross.
