African Billionaire Aliko Dangote on The David Rubenstein Show

would you like to be president Metiria some of us we need to lead in terms of the trajectory of the rock in Africa through the business not through the political leadership they're good investment opportunities for non-africans in Africa well that would opportunities for everybody you know and I think that's protection also for everybody so the Arsenal team and is that a team that you would like to buy something it is a team that yes you might like to buy you know someday would you fix your time please well people wouldn't recognize me if my tie was fixable just leave it this way all right I don't consider myself a journalist and nobody else would consider myself a journalist I began to take on the life of being an interviewer even though I have a day job running a private equity firm how do you define leadership what is it that makes somebody tick Alico dangoty is widely known to be the wealthiest man in africa so is that a title you're proud to have or is that one where you get so many people calling you for money you wish you weren't the wealthiest man in Africa well first of all thank you very much David is great to be here you know and also seeing you today well you know when they call you they will I mean wealthiest person in Africa you know it comes with a lot of baggage of course there are so many demands yeah and the white people now come up with so many different you know demands but it is good because I'd like to give back to the society so right now you were involved in many philanthropic endeavors in Africa and elsewhere let's go through some of them before we go to how you actually made all of this money so recently you had an event in New York where we are now with Mo Ibrahim also a wealthy African businessperson and Bill Gates in which you provided a fair amount of money for the African Center in New York in Harlem what is the African Center and why did you do that well we did the Africa center idea started was you know Chelsea Clinton had you know Ibrahim and my daughter Halima my daughter Lima joined them later and we realized that look we need to set up this Africa Center we need to make it a you know a reality first of all you know for us to be able to project Africa in a better light you know bringing Africa to the rest of the world you know especially when you look at you know the fabric of every September we have the United Nations General Assembly where the entire world converges in New York and what we want to do is to tell the real narrative of Africa and tell the rest of the world what Africa is all about so these now to do with policy business and culture you know because sometimes you know the I mean especially you know I Americans literally understand much about Africa you know somebody will say okay well both you Africans you know what kind of language do you speak for example in Africa we speak about 2,000 different languages that's a lot that's a lot so right now one of the big problems in Africa is health and you've been very involved in trying to eradicate polio in Nigeria along with Bill Gates and his foundation what is the progress that you've made today I think we've done quite a lot the you know the progress has been very very tremendous in the last three years we haven't really had any world you know virus of polio and hopefully when we work hard between the next six months by April we'll be satisfied to be Folio free country which means the entire African continent will be polio free now one of the things you're doing in the philanthropic world is building a hospital in Nigeria why do you feel a need to build a new hospital I think we need to build a world-class Hospital because when you look at it in zero we spend quite a lot of money where a lot of people go abroad for medical check out for medical operation then what we are trying to do is to give the hope to the population and say that look you don't need to travel abroad we'll be able to treat you that now for those who may not be familiar with Africa Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa is that right it is and it's growing at a very large rate in terms of its population is that now about 30 plus India to both people so in that the current rate at some point more people be in Nigeria than in the United States well by 2050 we'll be at about 450 million population and I'm sure we will be way ahead of the says will be about number three after China India and they need to be Nigeria in terms of by 2050 you could be the third biggest country that the current population growth rate so does that make you nervous about whether Nigerian house and feed all these people uh it doesn't really make me nervous we have massive arable land we have a lot of water we have you know the right climate so when you look at it the major contributor to our GDP and Angira is agriculture so I think we just need to tilt a bit and change from the normal oil you know reliant economy to agriculture and manufacturing so Nigeria is known as well for having large oil deposits is that the major contributor to the Nigerian economy is that the major source of wealth in Nigeria it's not the major source but it is it continues 90 percent of the foreign exchange you know that you know we have and we also the 60% of the government's revenue is also coming from oil but I think the gamma is doing quite a lot to try and diversify the economy by trying to structure their own taxes because we need to make more money from the tax edy taxes you know generation in Nigeria is a bit low so I think domain is working very hard to make sure that yes they are just all these now the wealthiest man in Africa and the wealthiest man in Nigeria do you get pressure to run for political office yourself would you like to be President my G Rhea I think I'm doing a great job who I am right now so I don't think I need to be in a political space some of us we need to lead in terms of the trajectory of the rock in Africa through the business not through the political leadership let's talk about how you made this amount of money which is by far the largest amount of money that any individual has in Africa so you came from a wealthy family or not a wealthy family I can probably wealthy family my late great grandfather in the 1940s was actually the richest you know west africa my late grandfather was one of the wealthiest Nigerian in the family name is dentata that's from my maternal side my father too you know was fairly rich you know but he was both you know in business and also in politics by know David one thing that I'm very very proud of is that I did not inherit any money from my father I built everything from scratch - I your father died when you were relatively young yeah he died when I was 8 years old so he didn't leave in his will a large amount of money for you well he lived in the will but uh you know I mean whatever that I inherited from him which means in assets I give that went to charity since then ok so did you go to college in Nigeria no you went in Egypt Egypt all right and what did you study business all right so you graduated at what age I graduated at about 20 years old all right so you went back from Egypt to Nigeria yes I'm but and then what did you get a job what did you do I started work with my you know uncle but there's a few months and then I went to Lagos and now I started my own business but just you know buying cement selling you know it was just a very low-key business all right so you're 20 21 years old you're buying some that you're a trader you know it's rating yes you're not making sure that you're trading it and I was trading at that time now cement is your main business we'll talk about in a moment but why is cement such a big part of Africa's you know wealth well you know the issue that when you look at cement cement is what builds infrastructure and we need a lot of infrastructure deficits in Nigeria alone we have about 17,000 deficit of housing and it is all over in you know Africa so when we started cement in Nigeria we realized that majority of it was actually imported and that is why we went in there we started and it's a long story so you ultimately were trading cement and then was it hard to get the money to keep that business going no it wasn't really had at that time I was buying to me Helly we started importation in 1980 because such a business 78 so by 1980 we started importing sugar rice you know commodities generally and then we stopped the cement business because the cement I was actually doing local trading it wasn't really import business with such a input of cement in 2000 okay so you had a cement trading business somebody thought Lafarge maybe buying it you decided not to sell because they want to control and yet you then decided to build your own cement manufacturing business is that right yes I decided in 2003 to build my own semantics that time Nigeria was only for this in about 1.8 1.9 million tonnes but we went ahead and started with five million tons of cement capacity so what year was that this was 2000 and we searched the building end of 2003 and we finish in 2007 so now you're the largest cement manufacturer in Nigeria well the largest cement man for Terra in sub-saharan Africa so you're building a refinery in Nigeria why does Nigeria need another refinery when you look at the entire sub-saharan Africa you know we have only two working refineries to the cement business is the core of your wealth and your company but you're now building other things so you're building a refinery in Nigeria why does Nigeria need another refinery well you know David let me give you a little bit of history you know what we do as dangoty group we use businesses like now why isn't our current businesses to build the future of the you know business like when were in sugar it was the sugar profits that we use in building the cement now with this event were building so many things you know refinery fertilizer you know petroleum products and then we're doing also petrochemicals with the refinery your question is okay why are we building a valley when you look at the entire sub-saharan Africa you know we have only two working refineries one it is in Cordova which has only 75,000 porosity the other one is by SAS all in South Africa but majority of all these countries almost all the sub-saharan African countries they don't have refining capacity so all of them they export the oil by the import product so we realize that majority of the foreign exchange spendings of Nigeria was to petroleum products inputs so Nigeria is exporting its oil and then it has to buy refine oil products back import it right yes and what you're doing is you're building one of the largest refineries in the world it is the largest single line in the world is 650,000 veracity 650 thousand barrels a day of refining capacity so to do that do you have to borrow some money or where the money come from to build that well what we are doing right now we are burying from the commercial banks well also boring some money from you know financial some financial institutions like the you know the African Development Bank the blooming banks financial deployment you know banks were boring from you know African Exim Bank so many companies outside the United to invest would like to invest in Africa where do you recommend that they invest in Nigeria South Africa Kenya obviously you're probably partial to Nigeria but are there good investment opportunities for non Africans in Africa well they're good opportunities for everybody you know and I think that's protection also for everybody you know as we speak today you know even for university let me give you an example in Nigeria if I have a partnership with you that I'm investing I don't even I won't have what you call minimum taxation but if the company is owned by myself alone as an Algerian on a giant entity we have a minimum taxation so there's quite a lot in terms of inviting inviting foreigners to come and invest in Africa but countries that I can suggest for you to invest one of them of course you know Nigeria Ghana is a very good place invest Kwadwo you know you know Kenya Kenya is also a very good place to invest now I first met you a number of years ago when I was raising my affirms African investment fund and you invested in it and today the bloom seems to be off the rose and African private equity investing it was very attractive to many people four or five six years ago today it seems to be less attractive is that because the economies in Africa have gone down a bit or what would you say is the reason well I think most of that reason Athenians to do a first of all lack of understanding of what you invest you know I mean look at the investment that were made would you I think I can say that ninety percent of what they were we invested in who are doing very well so I think it is where you should invest you myself as an Africa I cannot invest in every single sector so I have to be very choosy of I invest and you know there's a lot of you know wrong perception you know people read stories from newspapers and they believe what they are you know you know reading but I think you know as we go along you know the quite a lot of changes in most African countries try and change in terms of you know focus on the economy now you live principally and Legos it's not right yes and how many people are there in Legos aliquots today we have about 25 million 25 million peers in terms of population I know it's a very small so getting around and Legos which I've tried to do is not that easy don't getting around New York's not that easy either but for example when you get around you have like special police cars that take you around how do you get around Legos well I get around in Legos yeah sometimes I have you know police escort but not all the time nobody we can I Drive myself you drive yourself yes I do people stare at you and say there's the wealthiest man in Africa driving himself they do sometimes when they recognize you know the person driving yes you go to a restaurant by yourself that people come up for selfies or they ask you for money they don't really ask me for money but even here any time when I go to places you know to either eat or to you know I get a lot of requests for selfies well yes you know it's normal now you have some outside interests one of them I think you're interested in what we call the United States soccer but other people call football so the Arsenal team and is that a team that you would like to buy something it is a team that yes you know I would like to buy you know someday what I keep saying today we have twenty billion dollars worth of projects and I think that's really what I want to concentrate on you know I'm trying to finish building the company and then after we finish maybe sometime 2021 you know we can you're not buying a team right now I'm not buying as know right now I'm buying us know when I finish all this all right because I'm trying to take the company to the next level what are the attributes that you think you have brought to the table which make you successful I think the most important one number one they will if you are going into any business you must understand the business a to Z you must know that business okay so in terms of Africa itself generally are you bullish on Africa's prospects as a place to in which two people can invest private equity firms or industrial companies to invest I think I'm very very bullish when it comes to Africa and it is the main reason David today why we have twenty billion dollars that we invest in all you know how to go which will finish by end of next year first quarter of you know I mean in the next two years that's in the next two years I'm very very bullish you know in Africa we have done very very well in you know Africa and you know I can tell you if we continue with what we are doing today based on our own projections we'll be able to be you know within the next five years in the 1,400 now from time to time on some television networks I see advertisements for Dan Cody yes sir for your companies that was a general brand building why do you advertise that say in the United States the dangoty brand because most your businesses are not in the United States well you know it's a brand building and like what you have planned to do we are not going to remain dominant only in Africa you know I also invest why wouldn't invest outside Africa because what we are doing right now you know they were investing yes mainly in sub-saharan Africa but if you look at what we are building today we have a company that has revenues of four billion dollars in the next two years we'll have a company that will have a revenue of thirty billion dollars so with that we'll have quite a lot of money what we are trying to do is to use major part of that money and invest outside Africa and maybe 40 percent of it to continue to invest in Africa because we are invested very very heavily now so you're in your early 60s you're 62 now 62 well that's pretty early 60s so do you intend to keep doing this for 10 more years 20 more years 30 more years ah let me know to commit but I think I will I will maybe work for the next at least you know very active in the next 15 let's suppose somebody's watching this and say I want to be like Mr Dan Gaudi I want to be a successful businessman in Africa what are the attributes or anywhere where what are the attributes that you think you have brought to the table which make you four successful is it intelligence hard work persistence all of those things what would you say are the most important attributes I think the most important one number one if you are going into any business you must understand the business age that you must know that business you shouldn't just wanna invest because somebody now say ok you know there's good money in cement they want jump into cement you have to understand the business in and out and that's the difference with me I know my business you know now we can wake me up any time and ask me about fertilizer ask me anything that we are doing and the other one is really to work very hard and you have to have the tenacity of continuing to hear you have some hiccups here and there but you have to have you have to be focused in terms of what you do you know I've known you for a while and I never seem to get you to yell or scream or you seem very low-key you know use this technique of yelling and screaming at people or just very low-key and even keel so what do you attribute that or am I wrong I think no yeah no wrong that's my nature I'm always I'm very Pyatt and I'm very very calm I get upset sometimes when people try to be you know either to outsmart me all I don't like people who will not tell me the truth I always like people to look at me too you know and tell me the truth so were you investing any in the United States we are going to start investing you know in the United States just after this project we want to open a family office both in New York and in London we already have an office in London which has been operating for the last 30 years so we want to turn part of that you know as office so that we can diversify the worth as you know you know I've discussed this one with you before where you know sometimes in Africa you have issues of the valuation you know you know so we want to really preserve some of the families well right now sometimes wealthy people they collect art they collect cars they collect other things or what some of your wealth that you're not using for philanthropy what do you do with it you collect our your collector of things or I'm not really a collector of us you know the any time when I have excess money I like to put more in terms of charity I don't really have very expensive lifestyle and the great pleasure of your life is just building your company and then giving away extra money that's my greatest pleasure in life okay yes well it's a very good success story and I know a lot of people wanted to hear how you've done it and I guess you're saying it's hard work and persistence a little luck maybe from time to time look definitely luck must be there you know if there's no luck you can be able to make it of course well thank you very much for coming today and I appreciate your giving us to your insights thank you thank you so much David

Channel: David Rubenstein

Views: 888,138

Keywords: Bloomberg, africa, polio, ceo, vaccine, economy, commodities, natural gas, oil, emerging markets

Id: _5hYsdVbW2E

Length: 24min 6sec (1446 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 09 2020