{"id":16857,"date":"2019-03-03T03:49:46","date_gmt":"2019-03-03T09:49:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/?p=16857"},"modified":"2019-03-03T03:49:46","modified_gmt":"2019-03-03T09:49:46","slug":"africas-richest-man-makes-a-17-billion-bid-for-immortality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/?p=16857","title":{"rendered":"Africa\u2019s Richest Man Makes a $17 Billion Bid for Immortality"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Aliko Dangote\u2019s plan to reduce Nigeria\u2019s dependency on fuel imports will carve out an even bigger slice of the nation\u2019s $376 billion economy for his empire.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The best way to appreciate the scale of Aliko Dangote\u2019s empire is to hitch a ride on one of his private jets. A half-hour after his Bombardier Challenger 605 takes off from Lagos Airport, it descends into a seemingly desolate area of Kogi State in central Nigeria, dusty fields and clusters of trees stretching to the horizon. Suddenly a tangle of exhaust stacks, silos, and kilns pierces the sky to the left of the aircraft as Dangote Cement Plc<\/a>\u2019s Obajana plant comes into view. It\u2019s already the biggest in Africa, churning out enough sacks of cement to fill 1,000 trucks a day. A fifth production line now under construction will make it one of the world\u2019s largest.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The cement plant and its two sister factories in Nigeria have long been the bedrock of Dangote\u2019s fortune, Africa\u2019s biggest. But Dangote\u2019s future\u2014and, as he likes to say, that of the entire continent\u2019s economy\u2014lies to the south on the Nigerian coast. About 40 miles east of Lagos, on more than 6,700 acres of former swampland bound by a lagoon and the Atlantic Ocean, contractors are putting the finishing touches on a fertilizer plant valued at $5 billion. Next to it, construction of a vast oil refinery<\/a>\u2014a $12 billion project\u2014is under way.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"BUSINESSWEEK\"<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>
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Aliko Dangote during a visit to the fertilizer plant under construction in Lagos State.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If all goes according to plan, the complex will immortalize the 61-year-old Nigerian businessman as Africa\u2019s most prominent industrialist, vaulting Dangote Industries\u2019 annual revenue from $4 billion to about $30 billion, roughly 8 percent of Nigeria\u2019s gross domestic product. Oil industry experts such as London-based CITAC have questioned the project\u2019s timeline, citing logistical and financial challenges. But Dangote insists the refinery, which will be Africa\u2019s largest, is on track. \u201cBy 2020 I will finally dispatch oil,\u201d he says during a January interview at his Lagos home.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite controlling the world\u2019s 10th-largest oil reserves, Nigeria has only four aging, inefficient state-owned refineries, leaving it almost wholly reliant on imports for its fuel needs. Dangote says his massive refinery could end that dependency and lift electricity generation in a nation plagued by blackouts: \u201cIt will change the entire economy of Nigeria.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The fertilizer plant, which Dangote says will come online in a few months, will be capable of producing up to 2.8 million metric tons of urea a year. \u201cIt\u2019s probably the largest-volume urea plant ever executed at one time,\u201d says Alistair Wallace, head of fertilizer research at Argus Media in London. Nigeria\u2019s natural gas prices are the lowest in the world, meaning Dangote\u2019s fertilizer will likely be profitable even in the competitive export market. \u201cIt will generate hard currency and bring in dollars. It will be a good look for the administration and for Dangote,\u201d Wallace says.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The fertilizer plant under construction.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Born into a wealthy Muslim family of traders in the north, Dangote incorporated his own business selling cement at 21. He shifted to manufacturing the building material in the 1990s, convinced his homeland, the world\u2019s seventh-most-populous country, could meet its own demand for staples. Dangote factories churning out sugar, flour, and salt followed. A vertical integration push gave rise to other businesses, including oil, property management, packaging, and port operations.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Four publicly traded companies under the Dangote Industries umbrella account for about a third of the value of the Nigerian stock exchange. While shares of Dangote Cement tumbled 26 percent in the past year amid a sell-off in emerging markets, the fertilizer plant has helped boost Dangote\u2019s net worth to $17\u202f billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index<\/a>. (No value is attributed to the refinery in Bloomberg\u2019s analysis because it\u2019s still under construction.)<\/strong><\/p>\n

In many ways, Dangote\u2019s ascent recalls that of Gilded Age tycoons such as Andrew Carnegie and Cornelius Vanderbilt, who accumulated great fortunes as they created industries. While the emergence of a new generation of business titans that includes Amazon.com\u2019s Jeff Bezos and Facebook\u2019s Mark Zuckerberg has drawn attention to rising income inequality in the U.S. and elsewhere, Dangote\u2019s net worth is particularly disproportionate to the lot of ordinary Nigerians, almost half of whom live in extreme poverty.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Critics have attacked him for holding much of his wealth offshore and say he\u2019s a shrewd monopolist who has plied his political connections to secure an advantage over competitors. They claim his market-dominating cement company squeezes local consumers with prices three times the global average while slashing prices in neighboring markets to crush rivals.\u00a0 A World Bank report published in 2016 found that African cement prices averaged $9.57 per 50-kilogram bag, compared with $3.38 globally. Dangote\u2019s cement business has also been accused of exploiting a government-run investment promotion program to secure generous tax breaks.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dangote shrugs off such criticism, while preaching the gospel of markets as the best way to narrow the divide between the haves and have-nots. \u201cChina in 30 years has taken almost 500\u202fmillion people out of poverty,\u201d he says.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Soft-spoken and unfailingly polite, he offers up his chair in meetings to guests and serves food for others during a lunch in an office conference room. But the courteous chief executive officer is also a hard-driving manager. \u201c \u2018Not possible\u2019 aren\u2019t words he understands,\u201d says Giuseppe Surace, chief operating officer of the refinery project, as our convoy of Toyota Land Cruisers sets off on a four-hour tour of the site. \u201cIn his own way, he is very tough.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Under a bridge in Falomo-Ikoyi, next to where the Dangote group headquarters is located.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nigeria\u2019s $376 billion economy is, by some measures, Africa\u2019s largest, but the operational challenges for companies are also outsize. The World Bank assigns the country a lowly score of 53 on ease of doing business (Kenya gets a 70, and South Africa a 66). Besides an overabundance of red tape and weak protections for investors, the country is perceived to be more corrupt than many of its neighbors. Nigeria\u2019s chronic logistical logjams, infrastructure failings, and political risk are why CITAC says Dangote\u2019s 2020 timeline for the refinery may not be feasible.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even the so-called smart money has stumbled here. Five years after pledging to invest $5 billion in infrastructure alongside Dangote, Blackstone Group LP is in the process of exiting<\/a> an African subsidiary called Black Rhino Group because of a dearth of suitable opportunities, a person familiar with the matter has said. KKR & Co. disbanded its Africa deal team in 2017.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dangote, for his part, has decades of experience negotiating Africa\u2019s pitfalls. Yet even by the continent\u2019s standards, the refinery project could be characterized as a heavy lift. Dangote Industries bought the plot for $100\u202fmillion at the end of 2013, but it ultimately took almost three years\u2014and many truckloads of sand\u2014to prepare the swampy ground for construction. The company erected a jetty and widened and reinforced roads to accommodate shipments of cranes and other equipment.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Dangote at the construction site for the refinery.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dangote\u2019s existing empire gives him advantages. The new refinery is a big customer of Dangote Cement, and the roads to and from the surrounding quarries are clogged with his trucks. Also, his timing was fortuitous. The project geared up during a recession, giving him more bargaining power over contractors keen to land work. Plus its location inside a free-trade zone means the complex should be better insulated from the Nigerian political scene, according to Dangote\u2019s lieutenants. \u201cWe\u2019re an island,\u201d says Surace, an Italian who previously worked at oil services company Saipem.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Talk to ordinary Nigerians and plenty crack smiles at the mention of Dangote, who\u2019s featured in internet memes, while a recent single by Nigerian singer Teni<\/a> plays on his wealth. It\u2019s the kind of name recognition any politician would envy. Results from Nigeria\u2019s Feb. 23 general election, which was marred by delays, technical glitches, and violence that killed at least 39 people, saw President Muhammadu Buhari\u00a0beat his main challenger, Atiku Abubakar. But Dangote, who\u2019s long avoided playing political favorites and deflected questions on the election throughout the campaign, says he\u2019s not interested in governing. \u201cIf I exit from business and go into politics, nobody can actually sit in Dangote Group and take the kind of risk that I can, because I\u2019m the owner,\u201d he says. \u201cMy real job is to see how do I transform Nigeria and Africa and to take this kind of risk.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

While Dangote has confined his business activities to Africa so far, he expects to expand beyond his home continent after revenue tops $30 billion. There\u2019s not \u201ccapacity to be able to invest that kind of money just in Africa,\u201d he says.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Signs of his burgeoning fortune abound. His namesake foundation spends as much as $100 million a year on projects such as hospitals and malnutrition, according to its CEO Zouera Youssoufou. Dangote\u2019s offices feature photos of him with Bill Gates and Barack Obama, and he says he\u2019s in the process of setting up a family office that will have outposts in London and New York. Carlyle Group\u2019s David Rubenstein is helping set it up and the unit will invest alongside the private equity firm, Dangote said. Rubenstein, who hosts a show on Bloomberg Television, declined to comment.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very much on paper now,\u201d Dangote says.<\/strong><\/p>\n

He could even acquire that archetypal billionaire trinket: a professional sports team.<\/strong><\/p>\n

An Arsenal fan, Dangote says he\u2019s prepared to stomach the multibillion-dollar price tag the English soccer club would command once the refinery is finished.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI will go aggressively after Arsenal,\u201d he says.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For now, though, his focus is on the vast project taking shape on the Atlantic coast.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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A Dangote Cement truck on the Eko Bridge in Lagos Island.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The last time I see Dangote, it\u2019s past midnight at his Lagos home. He\u2019s sitting at the head of the dining room table, near a barely touched bowl of fish stew and a chunky Casio calculator. He turns his head, with closely cropped hair flecked with gray, toward the accounts in front of him.<\/strong><\/p>\n

He\u2019s absorbed. Seconds tick by in silence, then minutes. Finally he\u2019s satisfied. He signs off and\u2014ever the host\u2014patiently fields a few more questions before seeing me and his other guests out before heading to bed.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Waiting for my ride, I turn back and see Dangote, the $17 billion man, climbing the stairs.<\/strong><\/p>\n

He\u2019s back on the phone, still working.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n

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Aliko Dangote GCON<\/a> (born 10 April 1957) is a Nigerian business magnate, investor, and owner of the Dangote Group<\/a>, which has interests in commodities in Nigeria and other African countries.\u00a0<\/strong>Dangote is ranked by Forbes<\/a><\/i> magazine as the 100th-richest person in the world and the richest in Africa,\u00a0 and peaked on the list as the 23rd-richest person in the world in 2014. He surpassed Saudi-Ethiopian billionaire Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi<\/a> in 2013 by over $2.6 billion to become the world’s richest person of African descent<\/a>.<\/sup><\/strong>The Dangote Group was established as a small trading firm in 1977, the same year Dangote relocated to Lagos<\/a> to expand the company.<\/sup> Today, it is a multi-trillion-naira<\/a> conglomerate with many of its operations in Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, and Togo. Dangote has expanded to cover food processing, cement manufacturing, and freight. The Dangote Group also dominates the sugar market in Nigeria and is a major supplier to the country’s soft drink companies, breweries, and confectioners. The Dangote Group has moved from being a trading company to be the largest industrial group in Nigeria including Dangote Sugar Refinery, Dangote Cement<\/a>, and Dangote Flour.<\/strong>In July 2012, Dangote approached the Nigerian Ports Authority<\/a> to lease an abandoned piece of land at the Apapa<\/a> Port, which was approved.<\/sup> He later built facilities for his flour company there. In the 1990s, he approached the Central Bank of Nigeria<\/a> with the idea that it would be cheaper for the bank to allow his transport company to manage their fleet of staff buses, a proposal that was also approved.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Nigeria today, Dangote Group with its dominance in the sugar market and refinery business is the main supplier (70 percent of the market) to the country’s soft drinks companies, breweries and confectioners.<\/sup> It is the largest refinery in Africa and the third largest in the world, producing 800,000 tonnes of sugar annually. Dangote Group owns salt factories and flour mills and is a major importer of rice, fish, pasta, cement, and fertiliser. The company exports cotton, cashew nuts, cocoa, sesame seeds, and ginger to several countries. It also has major investments in real estate, banking, transport, textiles, oil, and gas. The company employs more than 11,000 people and is the largest industrial conglomerate in West Africa<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dangote has diversified into telecommunications and has started building 14,000 kilometres of fibre optic cables<\/a> to supply the whole of Nigeria. As a result, Dangote was honoured in January 2009 as the leading provider of employment in the Nigerian construction industry.<\/strong><\/p>\n

He has said, “Let me tell you this and I want to really emphasise it … nothing is going to help Nigeria like Nigerians bringing back their money. If you give me $5 billion today, I will invest everything here in Nigeria. Let us put our heads together and work.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

In November 2011, Dangote was awarded Nigeria’s second-highest honour, the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON<\/a>) by the former President, Goodluck Jonathan<\/a>.<\/sup><\/strong><\/p>\n

Dangote reportedly added $24.2 billion to his personal wealth in 2013, according to the Bloomberg Index, making him the thirtieth-richest person in the world at the time, in addition to being the richest person in Africa.<\/sup><\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2014, the Nigerian government said Dangote had donated 150 million naira (US$750,000) to halt the spread of ebola<\/a>.<\/sup><\/strong><\/p>\n

Dangote was named as the Forbes<\/a> Africa Person of the Year 2014. <\/sup><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n<\/article>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aliko Dangote\u2019s plan to reduce Nigeria\u2019s dependency on fuel imports will carve out an even bigger slice of the nation\u2019s $376 billion economy for his empire. The best way to appreciate the scale of Aliko Dangote\u2019s empire is to hitch a ride on one of his private jets. A half-hour after his Bombardier Challenger 605 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1314,1456,13,14,1,12,9,10],"tags":[3034,3032,3038,3033,3037,3035,3036],"class_list":["post-16857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-global-business-entrepreneurs","category-global-news-updates-and-more","category-health","category-most-commented","category-news","category-scitech","category-us","category-world","tag-2011-born-aliko-dangote-10-april-1957-age-61-kano","tag-aliko-dangote-mfr","tag-cairo-occupation-chairman-and-ceo","tag-gcon-aliko-dangote-jpg-dangote-at-the-world-economic-forum","tag-kano-alma-mater-al-azhar-university","tag-kano-state","tag-nigeria-nationality-nigerian-citizenship-nigerian-education-capital-high-school","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myboysay.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}