Africa’s Richest Woman Says Asset Freeze Dooms Her Angolan Firms

Isabel dos Santos, Africa’s richest woman and the daughter of former Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, said her businesses in Angola are set to fail after a court froze her assets and bank accounts in the oil-producing country.

“Freezing my accounts prevents me from being able to manage and recapitalize my companies,” Dos Santos, who has been living outside Angola since 2018, said in an emailed statement. “As such, they have all but been sentenced to death.”

The 46-year-old London-educated engineer amassed a fortune during her father’s almost four-decade rule and has an estimated net worth of about $2 billion, Bloomberg data shows. In Angola, her business empire includes stakes in Angola’s biggest mobile telecommunications company Unitel, two of the country’s biggest private lenders, Banco de Fomento Angola and Banco BIC, a supermarket chain, a beer factory and a cable company.

Outside Angola, Dos Santos holds indirect stakes in several companies, including Portuguese oil company Galp Energia SGPS SA and cable company NOS SGPS SA.


Earlier this week, an Angolan court placed a freezing order on the Angolan assets of Dos Santos, her husband Sindika Dokolo, and one of her executives, Mario da Silva. The nation’s Attorney General accuses the three of engaging in transactions with state-owned companies that led to the government incurring losses of $1.14 billion.

The move marks another step in President Joao Lourenco’s bid to battle graft and dismantle the influence of his predecessor’s family over key industries.

Since Lourenco took power in 2017, Jose Filomeno, Isabel’s brother, has been fired as the head of Angola’s sovereign wealth fund and accused of illegally transferring $500 million from Angola’s central bank to the U.K. Their sister, Welwitschia dos Santos, recently lost her seat as a member of parliament after leaving Angola.