Isabel dos Santos

Isabel dos Santos, the oldest daughter of Angola's longtime president, is Africa's richest woman. Though her representatives deny that her holdings have any connection with her father, Forbes research found that her father, President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, transferred stakes in several Angolan companies to her. Her assets in Angola include 25% of Unitel, the country's largest mobile phone network, and a stake in a bank, Banco BIC. In Portugal she owns a nearly 7% chunk of oil and gas firm Galp Energia (alongside Portuguese billionaire Americo Amorim), and nearly 19% of Banco BPI, the country's fourth-largest bank. She is also a controlling shareholder of Portuguese cable TV and telecom firm Nos SGPS (formerly called Zon). In November 2014, Isabel dos Santos made a $1.5 billion bid for Portugal Telecom, but withdrew the bid late the following month. Her first business, opened in 1997 when she was 24, was a restaurant in Luanda, the Angolan capital, called Miami Beach.