Africa’s richest billionaire by no means buys automobiles and drives himself round | UK | News | EUROtoday

You may suppose the richest man in Africa would flash his money extra, however Aliko Dangote just isn’t that kind of billionaire. The Nigerian enterprise magnate estimated to  be value over $10bn buys a brand new automobile each eight years and drives himself between enterprise conferences.

Listed by Forbes as a billionaire in 2008, Dangote’s story is not any rags to riches story. Some have labelled the enterprise magnate “ruthless” regardless of his partnerships with Bill Gates to combat towards polio and malnutrition. The richest black billionaire on the planet, Dangote is one thing of a traditional industrialist.

He began off buying and selling flour and sugar, however now his property make up 30 % of Nigeria’s whole public worth market. For comparability, big firms like Microsoft and Apple every make up solely 7 per cent every of the US’ market worth.

The Dangote Group is now one of many largest employers in Africa. When he launched plans for his mega oil refinery he mentioned, “You know nobody will come and develop this economy, only us.”

By 2025, Nigeria is anticipated to grow to be the continent’s largest refined oil exporter. He mentioned “when we start the others will see and then they will follow,” including “so we need to take charge” or the continent’s economic system will “never work.”

Yvonne Ike, West Africa CEO of Renaissance Capital, mentioned: “Working with him as a banker is extremely challenging. If you don’t know his business at an extremely detailed level you don’t stand a chance – he will unravel you in seconds. He does not suffer fools gladly.”

Dangote was born in Kano, the second largest metropolis within the Muslim north. He was three years outdated when Nigeria gained independence and 10 when civil struggle broke out earlier than there have been a collection of army dictatorships and transient democratic governments.

His great-great-grandfather traded in nuts and was the richest man in nation. When he died, Dangote’s grandad took over the enterprise. When he was simply 9 years outdated, Dangote’s dad died. He was taken into the care of his grandad who seen his grandson was already displaying a aptitude for enterprise.

At main college, Dangote would promote sweets, delegate gross sales and take a lower of his service provider’s earnings. He mentioned: “When you’re raised by an entrepreneurial parent or grandparent, you pick up that aspiration it makes you much more aggressive – to think that anything is possible.”

In 1977, he graduated from Al Azhar college in Cairo and joined his uncle’s cement enterprise. Lagos’ cement market was frenzied following the “Cement Armada” which happened after Nigeria’s authorities aimed to spend their oil growth earnings on infrastructure.

After ordering 20 million tonnes of cement to be imported inside 12 months, Lagos ended up with 420 ships queuing for months out of the harbor. Some merely sank however for people who had been left the concrete had grow to be degraded and unusable – creating an enormous hole available in the market.

As Nigeria turned the richest nation in Africa within the Seventies, Lagos’ inhabitants doubled and evening life took off. Dongate flirted with playing however finally give up earlier than making his first critical enterprise endeavour.

He requested his grandad for a mortgage of 500,000 Naira (NGN) to arrange the Donagte group – an quantity he mentioned was equal to the worth of 5,000 Mercedes on the time. He paid the mortgage again in lower than 6 months together with his extremely profitable cement endeavour.

With everybody now making an attempt to get within the cement enterprise, he pivoted to importing a couple of key objects like flour, fish and sugar.

He felt the oil trade was too corrupt saying: “If we followed the trend of dealing in oil it would have tainted our name. People would have thought you’ve made this money because you’ve done a lot of unethical deals in the oil industry.”

Dongate’s firm received a significant break on 1986 when Nigeria entered right into a commerce liberalisation coverage which funded incentives to spice up non-oil exports after the worth of oil dropped sharply.

He was a millionaire by the early Nineties as he hit his mid-30s. At the peak of importing, he was making $3.5million per 12 months – or as he mentioned “an awful lot of cash.”

Making a number of visits to Brazil by 1995, he turned impressed by the trade there and resolved to shift away from importing to processing and manufacturing. However, Nigeria’s ailing energy grid and competing with low cost imports from Asia made this troublesome.

The Nigerian authorities privatised loads of state owned companies, that means by 1996, Dongate had acquired 40 per cent of the nation’s nationwide salt firm – inheriting a monopoly. In 1977, he purchased into the nationwide fertilisation firm then was producing 90 per cent of Nigeria’s nationwide demand for sugar.

Dongate had a comfy relationship with the president, which afforded him beneficial authorities offers after donating 120m NGN to basic Oluṣẹgun Ọbasanjọ. On Dongate’s suggestion, Ọbasanjọ as president restricted imports to drive manufacturing.

Dongate vowed to construct cement if cement was a restricted import. He funnelled $390m of his personal cash and $470m of presidency funds right into a cement plant led by the World Bank.

He was criticised publicly for purchasing up state owned companies earlier than all authorities refineries had been offered to Dangote simply earlier than Ọbasanjọ left workplace. African information sources drew comparisons between Dangote and Russian oligarchs. Then, Dangote sugar debuted within the Nigerian inventory trade – and offered 30 per cent of firm for 420m NGN.

By 2008, Forbes added Dangote to its billionaires record earlier than he lastly entered the oil enterprise. With none of his corporations in debt, he determined to sink his hundreds of thousands in constructing a mega refiney. Nigeria was nonetheless transport out its uncooked oil product to be refined – lacking out on probably the most profitable a part of the method.

Dangote was named Africa’s richest individual in 2012 and he’s the richest black billionaire on the planet. Godfather to Nigerian music star Davido, the younger musician mentioned his uncle is “a different kind of billionaire”.

He mentioned: “Uncle Aliko buys two cars every eight years. He is very disciplined and a different kind of billionaire. Every time I see him, he just says one thing and one thing only. Save your money. There is nothing more he tells me other than to save my money.”