Business
Nigeria’s Aliko Dangote – Africa’s richest man leads ‘lions’ of business
Dangote Cement, which he intends to list on the London Stock Exchange, has subsidiaries in at least 14 African countries.
In August, it signed a US$4.3 billion contract with China-based Sinoma International Engineering Co. for the construction of 11 new cement plants, 10 of them in Africa and the other in Nepal.
When completed, the company’s existing capacity of 46 million metric tonnes per annum is expected to be boosted by about 25 million metric tonnes. As such, Dangote has positioned his businesses as indispensable in a changing continent, providing the raw materials to build its new infrastructure, fuel its growing industries and even feed its workers.
In an interview on CNBC published in March 2014, he said: “Africa has come of age. The opportunities we have in Africa are second to none.”
In his home country Nigeria, Dangote has courted politicians of all stripes and outlined plans to help develop badly-needed infrastructure. He recently signed agreements to invest more than US$9 billion in a petrochemical refinery and fertilizer complex in the southwest – the country’s largest.
Philanthropy and soccer
President Muhammadu Buhari is keen to develop agriculture and he has re-started the country’s 4 existing refineries, which had run idle in favor of the expensive export of crude and import of products.
The refineries have a total capacity of 445,000 barrels per day but are only currently producing less than half that. Dangote’s single plant aims to produce 400,000 barrels per day.
In an interview with CNBC in 2014, Dangote said of his drive to succeed: “Hard work pays. Nothing is impossible.”
But he has also followed the example of tycoons such as Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Virgin’s Richard Branson of giving back to society. His Dangote Foundation has spent billions of naira on education, healthcare and disaster relief, including a US$3 million pledge in December last year to help victims of the west Africa Ebola outbreak.
