Africa’s richest person continues to accumulate wealth at a startling pace
in his quest to enter the exclusive club of the 10 richest people on the
planet within the next decade. Over the past three decades he has
systematically built up his fortune, and with current expansion plans for
his Dangote group, shows no signs of stopping. His net worth has jumped
from $20.2 billion last year to $25.7 billion this year according to World Economic Forum.
Aliko Dangote’s Dangote Group is now the largest indigenous industrial
conglomerate in Sub-Saharan Africa. Aliko, as he is fondly called by
friends, was born into a wealthy trading family in the Northern Nigerian
city of Kano on 10 April, 1957. Upon graduation from Al Azhar
University in Egypt, where he obtained a business degree, Dangote went
into full-time business after obtaining a $5,000 loan from his uncle.
Through sheer tenacity, a punishing work ethic and bold decision-making,
he has built one of the largest conglomerates in Africa, with over $21
billion in revenues. Dangote Cement – his conglomerate’s largest
subsidiary, recorded a 2013 profit of $1.22 billion. He owns the largest
sugar refinery in Africa, the third largest in the world, producing 800,000
tonnes of sugar annually. His interests also include salt, flour mills, and
several agricultural products, which he exports across the continent.
Additionally, he has made major investments in real estate, banking,
transport, textiles, and oil and gas. In April 2014, he announced $9 billion
in financing for the construction of the largest petroleum products refinery
in Africa in Nigeria. In August, his company struck a $5-billion deal with
US investors, Blackstone Group, for power projects across Sub-Saharan
Africa over the next five years. Dangote also announced an investment of
$1 billion in rice production and commercial rice farming, with the aim of
ensuring that rice is grown, milled and distributed within Nigeria. A firm
believer in investing in Africans investing in Africa, Dangote recently
declared that he will pump $12 billion into the Nigerian economy.
Aliko Dangote remains one of the most generous philanthropists in the
world. Dangote, who does things in no small measure, earlier this year
announced that he will hand over $1.2 billion of his fortune to his
foundation. The foundation has recently teamed up with GE to promote
entrepreneurship across Nigeria, in addition to its existing work in health
and education.
Photo credit:African Success
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