Monday Column By Hameed M. Bello, PhD
hamdbelo@yahoo.co.uk
Definitely it cannot be contested – Aliko Dangote is a great man. Mike Adenuga and Abdulsamad Rabiu are both great men too. The trio has consistently redefined Nigeria’s character on the business template in the emerging new economic and business world order. They are still doing so. Only last Tuesday, Nigeria’s Dangote, again, emerged the richest African courtesy of the Forbes 2022 ranking of the world’s richest persons. He was named the 130th richest person in the world with $14bn wealth earned from his investment in cement and sugar alone. This feat is achieved despite the shocks of the pandemic and the Ukraine vs Russia crisis which has hampered buying and selling across the world. Nigeria’s Mike Adenuga made the 324th richest person in the world with a fortune of $7.3bn from investments in telecom (Globacom specifically) and oil, while Abdulsamad Rabiu was named the 350th richest person in the world with a fortune of $6.9bn from investments in cement and sugar.
The African ranked next to Dangote is South African Johan Ruppert and his family. He placed 230th on the list with a net worth of $8.9 billion. Another South African, Nicky Oppenheimer ranked third in Africa and 241st in the world with a net worth of $8.7 billion. Egyptian construction and investment magnate comes in at the 304th position with a net worth of $7.7 billion while Mike Adenuga of Nigeria completes the round of top 5 Africans on the list with a position of 324th and net worth of $7.3 billion.
“Nigeria is one of the best kept secrets. A lot of foreigners are not investing because they are waiting for the right time. There is no right time,” Aliko Dangote was quoted as saying. In other words, all time is right for investment which explains why Dangote does not hesitate to exploit the business opportunities across sectors of the Nigerian economy. And the results are obvious.
Aliko Dangote founded and chairs Dangote Cement, Africa’s largest cement producer and owns 85% of publicly-traded Dangote Cement through a holding company. Dangote Cement has the capacity to produce 48.6 million metric tons annually and has operations in 10 countries across Africa. After many years in development, Dangote’s fertilizer plant in Nigeria began operations in mid-2021 after President Muhammadu Buhari commissioned it. The $2.5billion urea and ammonia fertiliser plant is the biggest of its kind in the world and, combined with a 650,000 barrels per day oil refinery standing within its vicinity, will cost Africa’s richest man $17.5 billion, reports said. The refinery is due for launch later this year. The Dangote Refinery has been under construction since 2016 and is expected to be one of the world’s largest oil refineries when completed. Once listed and earnings from them are considered in any subsequent ranking by Forbes or any ranking body, for sure the fertilizer company, the refinery and the Peugeot Automobile company also acquired by Dangote will surely raise his profile and net worth in 2023. Dangote grew his wealth from $11.5 billion in 2021 to $14 billion in 2022, and with the addition of three key new investments to his business conglomerate, it is only a matter of time that his wealth will soar to earn him even a higher spot on the scale of the world richest.
Adenuga, Nigeria’s second richest man, built his fortune in telecom and oil production with a net worth of $7.3 billion. On Forbes lists, he made number 324 2022, 440 in 2021 and 286 in 2020. His mobile phone network, Globacom, is the third largest operator in Nigeria, with 55 million subscribers. His oil exploration outfit, Conoil, operates 6 oil blocks in the Niger Delta.
Abdulsamad Rabiu the 350th richest man in the world is worth $6.8billion. He is aged 61 and the founder of BUA Group, a Nigerian conglomerate active in cement production, sugar refining and real estate. In early January 2020, Rabiu merged his privately-owned Obu Cement company with listed firm Cement Co. of Northern Nigeria, which he controlled. The combined firm is called BUA Cement Plc. and Rabiu is said to own 98.5% of it.
There are 2,668 billionaires on Forbes’ 36th-annual ranking of the world’s richest people—87 fewer than a year ago. They’re worth a collective $12.7 trillion—$400 billion less than in 2021. The most dramatic drops have occurred in Russia, where there are 34 fewer billionaires than last year following Vladimir Putin’s offensive in Ukraine, and in China, where a government crackdown on tech companies has led to 87 fewer Chinese billionaires on the list as reports said.
Forbes found more than 1,000 billionaires who are richer than they were a year ago. And 236 newcomers have become billionaires over the past year—including the first ever from Barbados, Bulgaria, Estonia and Uruguay. America still leads the world, with 735 billionaires worth a collective $4.7 trillion, including Elon Musk, who tops the World’s Billionaires list for the first time. China (including Macau and Hong Kong) remains number two, with 607 billionaires worth a collective $2.3 trillion. Stock prices and exchange rates from March 11, 2022 were used by Forbes to calculate net worth. The Russia-Ukraine crisis, Covid-19 and volatile stock markets have been cited as causes of wealth decline leading to 329 billionaires dropping out of the Forbes’ 2022 rich list.
Mr Musk, who was recently appointed to Twitter’s board after emerging as the biggest single shareholder in the microblogging platform topped the Forbes list for the first time with a net worth of $219 billion. The billionaire, who owns more than 73.4 million shares in the social media platform valued at about $3bn, will “serve as a Class II director with a term expiring at the company’s 2024 annual meeting of stockholders”, Twitter said in a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Tuesday.
In contrast to the Forbes’ list, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index named Mr Musk the world’s richest person at the end of 2021 with a personal fortune of $273.5bn. Mr Musk added $68bn to his net worth over the past year after a 33 per cent jump in the share price of his electric vehicle maker, Tesla, Forbes said.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos fell to number two for the first time in four years “due to a 3 per cent drop in Amazon stock and increased charitable giving, which wiped $6bn from his net worth”, it said.
French luxury goods tycoon Bernard Arnault, who added $8bn to his fortune over the past year, remains the world’s third-richest person. Rounding out the top five are Bill Gates and Warren Buffett with personal fortunes of $129bn and $118bn, respectively. There were 236 newcomers added to the billionaire ranks this year, including pop star Rihanna, Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson and venture capitalist Josh Kushner.
