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| Description: Net Worth: $25.7 billion Industry: Manufacturing Country of Citizenship: Nigeria Age: 57 Number of Jobs Created: 32,900 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. 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. |
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