The richest woman in Africa, Isabel Dos Santos, aged 40, is an engineer by profession and is the daughter of President of Angola, Jose Eduardo Dos Santos. Isabel becomes the first woman on the African continent that receives this title. Her spectacular leap in the business world leads many to wonder though how “clean” she played it over time, writes Daily Mail in the electronic edition.
Isabel Dos Santos studied engineering at King’s College, London, before she opened her first business at just 24 years old. The first business in which President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos’ daughter invested was a restaurant called Miami Beach, according to the British newspaper.
Isabel Dos Santos has come a long way since her first entrepreneurial initiative. Today she belongs to the Boards of Directors in several companies in Angola and Portugal, holding a significant stake in several corporations, including a bank and a media company.
The richest woman in Africa has a 19.5% stake in BPI Bank, one of the largest banks in Portugal, publicly traded. This venture is estimated at $465 million. Also, Dos Santos has a 25% stake in Angolan bank BIC, valued at $160 million. Last year, Isabel Dos Santos has increased her stake in the largest media company in Portugal, ZON Multimedia, from 4.9% to 28.8%, which is now worth about $385 million.
The wealth of Isabel Dos Santos reached one billion dollars, according to the Daily Mail. U.S. magazine Forbes notes that the richest woman in Africa holds 25% stake in Unitel, one of the largest telecom operators in Angola.
Angola is a country located in the south of the African continent, with 18 million people, rich in diamonds and oil. Jose Eduardo dos Santos became president of Angola in 1979, four years after the country gained independence from Portugal. Dos Santos has changed country’s constitution, which gave him 10 extra years of political power, provided that his party, the MPLA, will stay in power.
Although hit by the civil war ended in 2002, Angola recorded a spectacular boom in the oil sector. Businesses in this segment achieved revenues of $66 billion in 2008 from $3 billion, as reported in 2002.
Transparency International, the prestigious non-governmental organization which investigates fraud at a state level recently placed Angola on the 168 place out of a total of 178 countries in terms of corruption.
In an attempt to understand the fabulous growth recorded by Isabel Dos Santos in business, Forbes asked Peter Lewis, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies, about the business importance in Angola.
“It’s clear through documented work that the ruling party [of Angola] and the President’s inner circle have a lot of business interests. The source of funds and corporate governance are very murky,” said Lewis.
Isabel Dos Santos’ spokesman said for Forbes that all investments made by the daughter of Angola’s President were conducted with maximum transparency, as she was working most often with known companies, listed on the stock exchange.
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