Johannesburg - Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, planned to spend close to $15 billion (R148bn) in the next four to five years pursuing investment opportunities in Nigeria and elsewhere on the African continent, he said at the weekend.
Dangote, who is ranked by Forbes as the 25th richest man in the world, said there had not been a better time to embrace the opportunities presented by a growing continent than now.
Speaking on the sidelines of a town hall meeting hosted by US President Barack Obama at the Soweto campus of the University of Johannesburg on Saturday, Dangote said it was time for Africans to take the lead in bringing about positive change, especially by showing confidence in what the continent had to offer.
“We as Africans have to actually take the lead,” he said in an interview, adding that the mindset about Africa among foreigners was something that also needed to change.
“When you talk about Africa some people think it’s just one little country that you are just going to visit and that we belong to one single society.
“No, it’s a huge, huge market,” he said.
Dangote, who hails from Nigeria, is the force behind the Dangote Group, the interests of which include cement manufacturing, energy, food processing and agriculture.
According to Forbes, his 93 percent stake in Dangote Cement, the largest producer of the material in Africa, is now worth $19.5bn.
Add to that his controlling stakes in other publicly listed companies such as Dangote Sugar and National Salt Company of Nigeria, shareholdings in blue chips such as Zenith Bank, UBA Group and Dangote Flour, an extensive property portfolio, jets, yachts and a current cash position that includes more than $300m in recently awarded Dangote Cement dividends.
Forbes estimated last month that Dangote was worth more than $20bn.
Last October Dangote sold 63 percent of Dangote Flour to Tiger Brands, a South African consumer goods company, in a deal worth $188m.
According to Dangote, anybody who is serious about business must invest in Africa. He said opportunities on the continent were so immense that even he and his companies were stretched.
But he would continue to pursue opportunities.
Dangote said the African growth story was a reality, echoing a sentiment expressed by Obama during his three-country trip of Africa.
“The return on investment in Africa is always very high. You are talking about 30 percent and above. And I don’t really believe that anybody who is serious about business should miss out,” he said.
“You are talking about 1 billion people,” he said, noting that in India there were about 1.2 billion people and in China about 1.3 billion.
“So there’s quite a lot to be done here.”
He saw immense opportunity in the agricultural space.
“If you look at the projection of the population in the next couple of years, when the world’s population will cross over 8 billion, a lot of countries need arable land and that land is only available in Africa. So there will be a lot happening here.”
Dangote said that over the past two years his cement companies must have invested about $5bn outside Nigeria. That included about $560m in South Africa, $500m in Tanzania, $580m in Ethiopia and about $380m in Zambia.
“So that is just to try and drag people who really don’t understand Africa, to show them that doing business in Africa is not as bad as what people portray it to be,” said Dangote, adding that “we also want to show them that the future is great”.
He said that in Nigeria alone, his group was investing $8bn in oil refining and $2bn in fertilizer.
“So we’re doing our possible best. In fact, we are a little bit stretched because in the next four to five years we are going to spend almost $15bn, which is quite a lot,” Dangote said. - Business Report
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