Aliko Dangote: From selling candy to "King Cement"

With a net worth of $ 25 billion, from a boy who sells candy to make money, Aliko Dangote of today has not only become Nigeria's richest man, but also of Africa.
Son of the family

Aliko Dangote was born on April 10, 1957. He grew up in a well-off family business in Kano, Nigeria. Aliko's grandfather Sanusi Dantata was once considered one of the richest in Kano.

Fortunately, Aliko has spent most of his childhood with his grandfather. In an interview with the press, Alikon said, "The family environment is very important to create the initial thinking about life with each individual.

To me, it's business. I feel very lucky and happy for that. "
With such a family background, despite being born full of material possessions, Aliko still has a strong passion and determination to do business from a very young age.

Even when he was in elementary school, Aliko bought candy and sold it on the streets to earn more money. He recalls, "I always kept my childhood memories, when I saved myself the money to buy carton boxes and sold them to friends and acquaintances, the only purpose was to make a profit. blow. Because of the fact that my family is not short of money. Maybe I was especially interested in business from that time. "

Entrepreneurship has become a motive for Aliko to pass the Al-Azhar Business School, a prestigious Islamic university in Egypt. In 1977, at the age of 21, Dangote graduated from Al-Azhar University, completing the foundations of a business career that is still cherished. With this inventory, Aliko returned home to Nigeria with the dream of starting a business and contribute to the construction of the homeland.

A new empire was born

Returning home with empty hands, no mortgage bank, Dangote persuaded his uncle to lend $ 3,000 to open a company named Dangote. Two of the company's main imports were rice from Thailand and sugar from Brazil.

After that, he retail these items to consumers right from his village to take profit. This work quickly became successful and became a "milk cow".

Dangote claims that the company's most profitable day is up to $ 10,000. And he easily paid off his uncle's loan within 3 months.

One of Dangote's business strategies at the time was to develop an effective distribution network that made goods available to consumers faster. This calculation helped him hold up to 60% of the domestic sugar market.

But in 1997, Dangote realized that acting as a transshipment unit was actually very expensive and not as effective as expected. Thus, he invested in building a factory to produce what the company had been importing and distributing for the past 20 years.

His company began producing pasta, sugar, salt and flour by itself. Not only that, soon saw the boom of the construction industry in the country, Dangote at the same time invested in the new direction, which is the truck business and production of cement to meet people's needs.

Later on, each division of the company was gradually separated into smaller companies. These enterprises later became the Nigerian National Salt Company, Dangote Grinding Mill and Dangote Cement Company, all operating in the form of community capital mobilization through the issuance of shares.

In particular, Dangote was given the right to manage a state-owned cement company. He greatly expanded the company's operations in 2005 by building a multi-million dollar factory.

The construction was raised by Dangote's $ 319 million in private funding and a $ 479 million loan from the Bank. Dangote immediately succeeded in the field of cement thanks to this project and turned the cement business into a monopoly industry in the region.
Constantly expanding

Dangote always reinvested most of its profits back into the business, which is why companies have grown so much since its inception so far. In an interview with Al Jazeera News, he explained, "We - The Dangote Group, unlike other Africans, always wanted to keep most of their assets and money in the bank. We do not keep money in the bank. We invest in whatever we believe in and we will continue to do so. "

Thus, Dangote has recently entered the oil and gas industry, an area in which he tried to avoid much of his career for various reasons.

In fact, Nigeria is Africa's leading oil producer. But the domestic factories degraded inefficient operation; In addition, poor management leads to the country having to import most of its fuel. The paradox is that even though Nigeria produces up to 2 million barrels of crude oil per day - the largest in Africa, it still imports 40 million liters of gasoline per day for domestic consumption.